Kaliwa Dam Project

Also known as: Kaliwa Dam · New Centennial Water Source–Kaliwa Dam Project (NCWS-KDP) · NCWSP-Kaliwa Dam · New Centennial Water Source Project (NCWSP, the broader program)

Government

Definition

The Kaliwa Dam Project — formally the New Centennial Water Source–Kaliwa Dam Project (NCWS-KDP) — is a water-supply scheme of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) that is building a concrete gravity dam, raised in the design from 63 to 73 meters, on the Kaliwa River at the Rizal–Quezon boundary in the Sierra Madre range, together with a 27.7-kilometer underground conveyance tunnel. The project is intended to add about 600 million liters of water per day to Metro Manila, a metropolis of at least 13 million people that MWSS projections show facing a supply shortfall by around 2027. The dam site lies at barangays of General Nakar and Infanta in Quezon province, within the ancestral domain of the Dumagat-Remontado people. (Wikipedia, PCIJ)

The project is China-funded: the contract went to China Energy Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (CEEC), with the notice of award issued in December 2018, and financing rests on a US$211.12-million preferential buyer’s credit from the Export-Import Bank of China signed in November 2018, with the Philippine government funding the balance through MWSS. Construction began in 2021, and the project is not yet operational: physical works stood at 24 percent in October 2024, 24.8 percent by December 2024, and about 26 percent by the end of 2025, with MWSS targeting completion by 2028 — a schedule the agency has continued to review. The dam’s proponent, MWSS, is covered in this wiki’s entry on the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System. (Inquirer, AidData, ABS-CBN News, BusinessWorld)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	Kaliwa Dam
Wikidata	N/A
DBpedia	Kaliwa_Dam (redirects to Proposed_dams_in_the_Kaliwa_River_watershed)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	dams (c_2121)
Google Scholar	Kaliwa Dam New Centennial Water Source Dumagat FPIC Sierra Madre
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Kaliwa Dam
New Centennial Water Source–Kaliwa Dam Project (NCWS-KDP)
NCWSP-Kaliwa Dam
New Centennial Water Source Project (NCWSP, the broader program)

Examples and Analogies

A second straw for a thirsty metropolis: Like Angat Dam today, Kaliwa is meant to be a raw-water source feeding MWSS’s system; unlike Angat, it would draw from the Sierra Madre side of the grid, diversifying supply that currently depends heavily on one reservoir.
A 1970s plan revived: The idea of damming the Kaliwa watershed dates to the 1970s under Ferdinand Marcos Sr.; it was revived as a smaller 2012 proposal under Benigno Aquino III and re-scoped under Rodrigo Duterte into a full-sized dam financed by Chinese official development assistance. (PCIJ, Wikipedia)
One dam, two battlefields: The project is contested simultaneously in the community sphere — whether the Dumagat-Remontado gave free, prior and informed consent, the process described in this wiki’s entry on Free, Prior and Informed Consent — and in the environmental sphere, over the loss of protected Sierra Madre forest. (Philstar, Wikipedia)
Verified reference points:
November 2018: loan agreement signed with China Eximbank; notice of award to CEEC issued in December 2018 (AidData, Inquirer)
June 29, 2021: groundbreaking; construction proceeds from 2021 (Wikipedia, PCIJ)
October–December 2024: 24 percent, then 24.8 percent physical completion (PCIJ, ABS-CBN News)
April 2025: NEDA Board approves a cost increase for the project (ABS-CBN News)
End-2025: about 26 percent complete; MWSS targets completion by 2028 while reviewing the pace (BusinessWorld)

Usage Scenarios

1. Metro Manila Water-Security Planning

MWSS and its concessionaires treat Kaliwa as the next bulk supply increment for the East and West Zones, designed to forestall the supply gap projected around 2027; the concession framework it serves is described in this wiki’s entry on Water Privatization in Metro Manila. (PCIJ)

2. ODA-Financed Procurement

The project is a case study in loan-tied infrastructure: a Chinese contractor, an Eximbank preferential buyer’s credit covering most of the cost, and Philippine counterpart funding through MWSS. (AidData, GMA News)

3. Indigenous Peoples’ Consent Processes

Because the site lies in Dumagat-Remontado ancestral domain, the project turns on the Free, Prior and Informed Consent process under the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act, administered by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples — the subject of this wiki’s entries on Free, Prior and Informed Consent and on the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples. (Philstar, NCIP)

4. Environmental Regulation of Infrastructure

The dam’s environmental compliance certificate, its watershed-management conditions, and the Commission on Audit’s scrutiny of both procurement and compliance provide working material for the study of Philippine environmental governance. (PCIJ, Inquirer)

Strategies

Diversify raw-water sources rather than deepening dependence on Angat, accepting a distant and contested watershed as the price of redundancy. (PCIJ)
Package financing as official development assistance to move a long-delayed project, accepting the scrutiny that loan-linked procurement attracts. (AidData, Inquirer)
Pair the dam with a long conveyance tunnel so water can be delivered to existing treatment and distribution assets without duplicating networks. (PCIJ)
Subject the design to extreme-event analysis: the environmental impact study modeled reservoir levels against a once-in-a-thousand-year flood plus eight percent climate-change-adjusted rainfall. (PCIJ)
Commit to watershed protection — reforestation, watershed management, threatened-species assessment — as conditions of the environmental compliance certificate. (PCIJ)

Security and Safety Measures

The dam height was raised from 63 to 73 meters, which MWSS says incorporates a bridge across the dam crest into the structure. (PCIJ)
Flood-safety modeling in the environmental impact study compared projected river levels in Daraitan with the maximum simulated reservoir water surface elevation under extreme-rainfall scenarios. (PCIJ)
The Commission on Audit has pressed MWSS for proof of compliance with environmental conditions — reforestation and watershed-management plans and a threatened-species assessment — before and during construction. (PCIJ)
Seismic-safety questions about the dam’s position in the faulted Sierra Madre terrain have been raised by project critics [(verify)] for independent engineering assessments.
Site access controls, including checkpoints operating since 2020, govern entry to the construction zone. (PCIJ)

Historical Context

Proposals to tap the Kaliwa River date to the 1970s, and the broader New Centennial Water Source concept circulated for decades as a successor to the shelved Laiban Dam. The project took its present form in 2017–2018, when the Duterte administration secured a US$211.12-million Eximbank credit — following a financing cooperation agreement of November 2017 — and awarded the works to CEEC in December 2018, with media reporting a contract price of about ₱12.2 billion. In a June 2019 audit memorandum, the Commission on Audit concluded that the ₱18.7-billion project had “the semblance of a competitive bidding when in reality, it is a negotiated contract,” noting that only CEEC survived eligibility screening and that a rival’s ₱13-billion bid exceeded the approved budget. Groundbreaking followed on June 29, 2021, after tunnel-boring machines for the conveyance works were disclosed that June. (PCIJ, AidData, Inquirer, GMA News, Wikipedia)

Construction has been slower and costlier than planned. Physical completion was measured at 24 percent in October 2024 and 24.8 percent by December 2024; in April 2025 the NEDA Board approved a cost increase, and by the end of 2025 MWSS reported about 26 percent progress while reaffirming — and still reviewing — a 2028 completion target. The project thus remains in mid-construction as of 2026, several years past the timelines discussed at award, with its output still to be delivered to the metropolitan grid. (PCIJ, ABS-CBN News, BusinessWorld)

Challenges and Controversies

Free, Prior and Informed Consent

Dumagat-Remontado communities and their advocates contend that the project proceeded without valid consent under the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act; a January 25, 2024 report to the United Nations Human Rights Council relayed community statements that some 10,000 people were adversely affected and that the project violates ancestral-domain rights. Opponents have accused the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples of acting as “spokespersons” for the proponents rather than protectors of indigenous rights, while the NCIP has published its own account defending the consent process it conducted. (Wikipedia, Philstar, NCIP)

Environmental Cost in the Sierra Madre

The watershed sits within the Sierra Madre Biodiversity Corridor, one of the country’s priority conservation sites, and was classified a protected area in 1999. The Stop Kaliwa Dam Network estimates 291 hectares of forest-cover loss affecting 126 species within 300 hectares of the watershed; the Save Sierra Madre Network projects damage across 9,700 hectares of forest and the displacement of 1,485 families; and Global Forest Watch recorded about 444 hectares of tree-cover loss at the site from 2019 to 2023. (Wikipedia, PCIJ)

Displacement of Communities

MWSS’s own findings, reported by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, put the number of affected households at about 2,492 in Daraitan, Tanay alone — MWSS says roughly half the village would be submerged, while indigenous groups say up to 90 percent. Sacred sites on the reservoir’s fringes and livelihood access restricted by checkpoints since 2020 are additional documented grievances. (PCIJ)

Procurement Integrity

The Commission on Audit’s 2019 finding that the bidding was effectively negotiated — with two of three Chinese bidders apparently present only to satisfy the three-bidder rule — remains the central procurement criticism, alongside continuing questions about the cost increases approved in 2025. (Inquirer, ABS-CBN News)

Schedule and Cost Performance

From an award price near ₱12.2 billion and an earlier completion horizon, the project has moved to a NEDA-approved cost increase in 2025 and a 2028 completion target that MWSS itself keeps under review — a lag that prolongs both the metropolis’s supply risk and the communities’ uncertainty. (GMA News, BusinessWorld)