On a clear morning of November 22, 2002, Malinao got an important visit from the World Bank and LOGOFIND (Local Government Finance Development Fund). Led by Ming Zhang of World Bank and LOGOFIND Project Director Lani Magdamo, the group comprising ten specialists in different fields of project development was in Malinao to check the progress of the construction of an 8-room two storey school building in Bulabud.
 Mayor Ilio welcomes Lani Magdamo, LOGOFIND Project Director |
 Welcome to Malinao - World Bank Team Leader Ming Zhang |
It was sometime in October 2001 that LOGOFIND gave an orientation at the Aklan State University in Banga which Mayor Ilio attended. There are two projects proposed by Malinao for funding by LOGOFIND. The first is a river control project along the Aklan River on the eastern side of the Poblacion. The second project is this school building in Bulabud. Initially, it was the river control project that was pursued by Malinao. Mayor Ilio went to Manila to submit the application for the river control project named "Malinao River Park Project".
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Upon submission of the application for the river control project, a team from LOGOFIND was dispatched to look into the feasibility of this project. The leader of this four man team was Engineer Bert Agaid, a UP graduate, who happened to be a former student of the father of Mayor Ilio. (Dominador I. Ilio is a long-time professor at the UP College of Engineering, teaching from 1939 up to 1976.) Initial studies were made and the documentation for this project had been prepared. However, the river control project was put on hold because another project by the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) would affect fundamentally the river control that is being proposed by the municipality.
The intake of the western side of the irrigation system with waters coming from the Aklan River is located at the same site of the river control project. The Dagongdongan Hill was tunnelled in the late 1960s to pave way for the passage of irrigation waters from the intake just beneath the southern flanks of the Dagongdongan. This is an ideal intake because on one side the rocky foundation of the Dagongdongan assures a permanent anchor for the intake structures. On the other hand, the presence of the irrigation intake is also a permanent invitation for the irrigation people to perpetually control the water flow of the Aklan River into the irrigation intake. When water flow veers away from the intake, NIA bulldozers, cranes and graders readily alter nature to insure irrigation to rice fields of western Aklan. Ironically, not a single rice field of Malinao benefits from this irrigation intake.
The alteration of the water flow has another unintended effect. The river bank on the Malinao side of the Aklan River is always be in the proximity of the intake since water has to always be channelled into this intake. Before this intake, there were times when the "bakoeod" on the Malinao side extendsed far, sometimes nearly reaching Barrio Ugsod in Banga.
To upgrade the irrigation system of Aklan a long-delayed project is to be implemented in 2002. This is the Aklan River Basin Development Project, one componment is the building of a rubber dam in Sigkay, Banga and Kinalangay Nuevo, Malinao. To better control the water for irrigation, a concrete canal from the Kinalangay Nuevo dam to the intake in Poblacion would be constructed. The present intake would be adjusted to now absorb the water from this canal. The remaining waters of the Aklan River would now flow in its natural course. Between the two rocky formations of the Dagaongdongan and the Santiago some three hundred meters upstream, a stronger river control structure could be built. Unfortunately the construction of the dams has not yet started. And the intake continues to get its waters directly from the Aklan River.
So instead of the Malinao River Park Project, the Bulabud school building project was pursued.
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