One hundred thirty years of safe water and sewerage services for Metro Manila

When the Manila Water Supply System began its task of providing a steady and potable water supply for Metro Manila in 1878, the City of Manila, like the rest of Las Islas Filipinas, was still governed by Spain. Before the winds of revolution swept the Philippines into a long struggle for self-determination, the agency that would become the Manila Water and Sewerage System we know now had already begun its task of watering the capital seed that grew into a sovereign state.

The Manila Water Supply System is the oldest such system in Asia. Constructed in 1878 with funds donated by Spanish philanthropist Francisco Carriedo y Peredo, the MWSS began its task of providing water on tap to what is now Metropolitan Manila by delivering 16 million liters of water daily to 300,000 people.

From 1908 to 1924, the MWSS increased the water supply sourced from the Marikina River by ensuring additional pumping capacity at Santolan in what is now Quezon City, building a masonry dam at Wawa in Montalban and a 42-inch gravity line to San Juan town (now a city) where the line filled a 224-million liter reservoir. The total supply capacity of this system was 92 million liters of water a day.

From 1924 to 1944, the MWSS established the Angat-Novaliches system tapping the Angat river in Bulacan province as a source that is the centerpiece of the backbone of Metro Manila’s existing water system.

The idea of tapping Angat river for Metro Manila’s water supply was born in 1903, though plans to do so...    read more