By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

SENATOR Ben Pangelinan, D-Barrigada, has expressed concern over the digital imaging of Guam’s land records.
Pangelinan, in a letter to Gov. Felix P. Camacho, said the digital imaging of Guam’s land records may endanger its status as “public records.”
On Jan. 5, 2007, the government of Guam entered into a Digital Imaging Memorandum with the Genealogical Society of Utah, a non-profit corporation that offered to volunteer its services to convert public land records of Guam into digital format.
According to the agreement, the Genealogical Society of Utah will be allowed reasonable access to records until such time that the digital processing is complete.
“It is assumed that the volunteers will need the assistance of staff from the Department of Land Management to retrieve and return the documents. So, there will be some costs incurred to the Department in assisting the volunteers. While I admire the volunteerism of the Society, I would like to raise several concerns with regard to this arrangement,” Pangelinan said.
According to the senator, there is no indication in the agreement as to the reason why the Genealogical Society of Utah is conducting the project. He said it appears that there is profit to be made as outlined in Section 5 of the agreement where the Genealogical Society of Utah will be allowed to charge copies under certain conditions.
“This may be a question of whether the Society’s service would be considered true volunteerism,” Pangelinan said.
He added that Section 3 of the agreement states that the quality of the digital records shall meet the Genealogical Society of Utah’s standards.
“What are they? What are ours? In Section 4, it says that the governor will be provided one copy at no cost. However, each additional copy may be purchased. At what cost? As mentioned in Section 7, the documents are public records. Once the records are digitalized, who owns the property? If it remains the Government of Guam, why does the government have to pay for additional copies?” the senator asked.
Pangelinan also pointed out that the only signature on the agreement dated Jan. 4, 2007 is that of the governor, and that there is no signature from the Genealogical Society of Utah to concur with the agreement.
“These records belong to the people and we should make every effort to ensure the protection and integrity of each file. Unfortunately, I do not believe that the current agreement achieves this. There are too many unanswered questions and I respectfully request that you cease the activities of the Society immediately and revisit the agreement to address these concerns. This will be in the best interest of our people,” Pangelinan concluded.