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UPDATE: HOUSE PASSES BILL TO REWARD WORLD WAR II
FILIPINO VETERANS -- Bill would not approve
pensions,
but would make different one-time payments to
U.S.
citizen and non-citizen Filipino veterans.
For more about the Filipino veteran fight for
equity, use the VA Watchdog search engine... click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessear
ch.php?q=filipino&op=and
Story here...
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeq
M5jtJbWQg5_p9ate3MYcLYScl-ux5AD93CNAKO0
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House passes bill to reward Filipino WWII vets
By WILLIAM C. MANN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed legislation on Tuesday to reward
belatedly more than 18,000 Filipinos for their service with U.S. forces in
the Philippines during World War II.
Amounts involved fall far short of what they and tens of thousands of
their Filipino brothers-in-arms were promised for their service. Filipinos
made a major contribution to the U.S. defense of its colony and its
recovery from Imperial Japanese forces as the United States military
machine moved back toward Japan.
The "Filipino Veterans Equity Act of 2008," which passed 382-23, would
make one-time payments of $15,000 to Filipinos who are U.S. citizens and
$9,000 to non-citizen Filipino veterans. The Senate passed a bill on
veterans' affairs in April that provided pensions for many of the
surviving veterans but has not acted on the House-passed legislation.
Senators could take up the House version or meet in conference committee
to work out the differences in the two versions of the legislation.
 Ben
de Guzman, a spokesman for the National Alliance for Filipino Veterans
Equity, said only 18,115 veterans remain. He said roughly two-thirds still
live in the Philippines.
After President Franklin D. Roosevelt conscripted Filipino men and boys
into the U.S. Army Forces in the Far East on July 26, 1941, they were
promised full benefits as veterans of the U.S. Army. After hostilities
ceased, however, Congress reversed the promise in the Rescissions Acts of
1946.
Veterans who began receiving benefits before passage of the Rescissions
Acts continued to receive them. The duty of the other veterans, many of
whom fought in the Philippine jungles in U.S. uniforms and were forced on
the Bataan Death March with their American comrades, was deemed not to
have been active duty.
De Guzman said while he is pleased that both the Senate and the House
finally have passed bills to rectify the situation, questions remain.
"Not the least of it is the amount" for each old soldier, he said. The
veterans themselves, he said, "are surprisingly of one voice on this.
Traditionally if you ask 11 vets what they think, you get 11 different
answers." They are united in thinking the congressional action is lacking,
he said.
They would seem to have a champion in the chairman of the Senate Veterans'
Affairs Committee, Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka, a World War II veteran
from Hawaii.
His spokesman, Jesse Broder-Van Dyke, said Akaka was meeting with senators
about the veterans. Akaka sponsored the bill that passed the Senate with
the pensions intact.
"He just wants to give them the recognition they reserve while they're
still alive," Broder Van Dyke said.
-------------------------
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