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 were only set into motion in the 1920s. The major components of Manila’s water system now include the Ipo Dam at the confluence of the Ipo and Angat rivers, a 6.4-kilometer tunnel from Ipo to Bicti, a 36-billion liter impounding facility in Novaliches, a 7.5 km. raw water aqueduct from Novaliches to Balara in Quezon City, the Balara Filtration Plant and a covered reservoir in San Juan that is capable of holding 40-million liters of water.

The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) was created through Act No. 2832 in 1919. Its service area was then expanded to cover the capital’s 14 adjoining cities and municipalities.

As World War II raged, the Philippines was under Japanese occupation for four years. During this time, the MWD continued to deliver water to the service areas it could still reach despite the ravages of war.

In the post-war years from liberation in 1945 to 1964, the Angat-Novaliches system was improved, more aqueducts were built, the Balara plant’s capacity was increased, additional storage reservoirs were constructed in San Juan and additional water distribution mains were laid out.

In 1955, the National Waterworks and Sewerage Authority (NWSA) took over the functions of the MWD and all other water systems nationwide. From then on, tap water was called “Nawasa juice,” a nickname that stuck until the early 1990s.