By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

THE Pacific Association of Radiation Survivors seeks to meet with Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo this week to press for the reintroduction of a bill to include Guam in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Program, the organization’s president, Robert Celestial, said yesterday.
“We sent the congresswoman a draft bill last Jan. 19, but until now she hasn’t done anything on it. We will take advantage of her visit to remind her to re-introduce that bill,” Celestial told Variety.
Bordallo is currently on Guam, accompanying a congressional delegation led by Rep. Solomon Ortiz, chairman of the subcommittee on readiness.
PARS held a general membership meeting at the University of Guam Lecture Hall on March 22 to update radiation exposure victims on the status of the compensation program. Within the same week, the Legislature adopted a resolution requesting Congress to place Guam under the RECA Program.
Bordallo introduced H.R. 2910 in the previous Congress. It was referred to the House Committee on Judiciary, but left undone when the last Congress adjourned.
H.R. 2910, filed on June 15, 2005, was based on a report by the Committee to Assess the Scientific Information for the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program, which concluded that Guam received measurable fallout from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific in the 1950s, thus making the island eligible for compensation under RECA Program.