by Krystal Paco

Guam - Students at the Guam Community College aren't only thinking green, they're seeing red. "Our main concern is that it has already been passed. We're now going back to creating something else that's going to counter it," detailed Aaron Unpingco.

GCC is concerned about legislation authored by Senator Ben Pangelinan that would throw out the Guam Community College's plans to lease property to the Guam Power Authority to develop educational opportunities to train workers for emerging technologies related to sustainable and renewable energy. GCC's lease was authorized in Bill 176, which was passed unanimously by all Guam senators and signed recently into law.

Unpingco is the student member on the Guam Community College's board of trustees, and continued, "Today I had a meeting with the board at the Governor's Office and we were discussing what's going on with Bill 176, and that is for GPA to lease land from GCC to build a solar farm. The pro to this is that it's going to provide training for students to learn the solar farm and what it entails - it provides additional revenue to the school."

Bill 176 was signed into law on September 30 by then-Acting Governor Ray Tenorio. On this very same day a public hearing was held on Senator Pangelinan's Bill 206, which would instead take the land GCC was going to lease to GPA and transfer it to the Guam Ancestral Lands Commission. "It's just who benefits from the property - the landowners or the Government of Guam, and in this case, GCC," said the senator. "We believe - and I believe - that it should be the original landowners."

Students however are confused and are questioning why Pangelinan voted in favor of Bill 176 to turn around and introduce Bill 206. "One of the ways we can resolve that matter is GPA is entering into a contract to develop a solar farm in Talofofo - why have the government develop a solar farm to use for teaching when you can have GPA as part of its contract with this company that's going to invest $300 million in a solar farm, put in a training program to train the students at that site that accomplishes what GCC wanted to use the property for," said Pangelinan.

According to GPA spokesperson Art Perez the agency has not decided where or even the type of renewable energy project it will sign a contract for to implement. And with no contracts and no decisions just yet, GCC students like Unpingco have their mind set on what should be done with Pangelinan's bill. He shared, "We're going to encourage our lawmakers to vote no…every campaign season politicians promise to make education a priority. Well, here's an opportunity to live up to that promise, and we are asking them. We're not going to tell them."