NIA Region-1 has P700-M Budget this Year

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

URDANETA CITY, Pangasinan – The four provinces’ coverage regional office of the National Irrigation Authority (NIA) has a budget of P700 million this year, according to its regional manager.

Region-1 Regional Manager Gaudencio “Dennis” de Vera told Northern Watch Newspaper the amount will be allocated to the irrigation projects in the provinces of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, and Pangasinan.

TOP HONCHOS. National Irrigation Administration Region -1 Manager Dennis de Vera (left) and NIA Deputy Administrator for Administrative and Financial Sector Ralph Lauren A. Du during the latter visit at the regional office in Urdaneta City, Pangasinan. Both of the executives are illustrious sons of the mammoth Pangasinan province.

De Vera was sworn as acting Regional Manager by Administrator Ricardo R. Visaya on January 5, 2022 at the NIA Central Office in Quezon City.

The Regional Manager cited that the Agno River Irrigation System Extension Project (ARISEP) is a special project’s entity not under his power.

“Iyong gumagawa ng integrated projects siya kasi ang coverage niya 5^th and 6^th Districts (of Pangasinan)”.

Aside from the two congressional districts in Pangasinan, the billions of pesos budgeted ARISEP covers the parts of the provinces of Nueva Ecija and Tarlac.

Although the chief of the ARISEP and the Region-1 NIA chief have the same designation and salary grade, the chief of the former is called “Project Manager” while De Vera is dubbed as “Regional Manager”.

“Oo project manager ang tawag e. Kami naman regional manager kasi region naman kami. Siya project kasi project manager”.

 NIA Region 1, according to its website, has a total land area of 1,301,260 hectares. The potential irrigable area is 349,484 hectares covering the four  provinces of the region.

The total service area is 119,158 hectares while total firmed-up service area is 103,091 hectares, NIA Regional Office 1 serves more than 125,800 farmer-beneficiaries. As of December 31, 2016 inventory report, the Regional Office operates and maintains 27 National Irrigation Systems (NIS) and 785 Communal Irrigation Systems (CIS).

Administrator Visaya highlighted in the 198^th IATF Task Group on Food Security Virtual Presser that as of December 2021, the NIA recorded 65.28% irrigation development, irrigating 2,042,392.66 hectares of agricultural land nationwide. Under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration and for the period of 2016-2021, there has been an increase of 311,264.66 hectares or 7.95% increase in irrigation development.  Visaya stressed a record in history, that the status of irrigation development for year 2021 is 11.68% higher than the irrigation development status 10 years ago.