VARIOUS Davao City Government department heads participated in the groundbreaking ceremony of the City Archives and Record Center (CARC) on Wednesday.
The groundbreaking ceremony was led by Davao City Administrator lawyer Melchor Quitain at the vacant lot fronting the Davao City Overland Transport Terminal (DCOTT).
During his speech, Quitain said they target to finish the building before the year ends.
He earlier said that the Davao City Government had allocated a total of P20 million for the establishment of the building.
CARC was officially created under Executive Order 30 signed by Mayor Rodrigo Duterte last September 23, 2014 pursuant to Republic Act 9470 or the National Archives of the Philippines Act of 2007.
City Government Assistant Department Head II and CARC overseer Ann Victoria Silvosa said in a media interview that the main function of the city archives is to recover and preserve old city records and to properly store current records.
"We have a procedure following RA 9470, so every government document has a life so there are two types: permanent records are the ones we will be keeping for a lifetime and second are the ones with a certain life for example 15 years, so we will keep that for 15 years before disposing it," she explained.
Silvosa also said that they are still assessing if there will be a need for additional personnel once the CARC building is finished.
"We are still assessing if we need to hire more personnel because the moment that this will be established it will just be procedural," she said.
According to her, there are around 80 records officers in different city departments who are currently undergoing enhancement seminars since October 2014.