US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is supporting a bill that would award pension benefits to Filipinos who fought under the US flag during World War II when the Philippines was a US commonwealth.
Obama issued a statement urging his colleagues in the Senate to provide the veterans with the recognition he says they deserve.
"Approximately 250,000 Filipino troops joined American forces to fight in World War II, but too many of these heroes are still being denied benefits," Obama said in the statement that was posted on his campaign website on Monday.
The Senate veterans affairs committee has already passed a broad bill that includes the benefit measure, but the full Senate has yet to vote on the legislation.
The committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Richard Burr, is opposing the measure proposing benefits for Filipino veterans. He has submitted an alternative bill that excises that portion of the legislation, saying the government should instead spend its money on veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Senator Burr believes the special pension for Filipino veterans is the wrong priority for taxpayer dollars at a time of war," said his spokesperson, Chris Walker.
But Sen. Daniel Akaka, a Hawaii Democrat and chair of the veteran affairs committee, is backing the Filipino veterans bill. Akaka is also a US veteran of World War II.
The Filipino veterans joined units under US command at a time when US law mandated that all Philippine citizens owed allegiance to the United States. The law also stipulated US control over Philippine national defense and foreign affairs.
Barack Obama
Barack Obama
After the war, however, the US Congress passed the Rescission Act of 1946, stripping Filipino veterans of their status as US veterans. The move denied Filipinos the same benefits available to other veterans of US military service.
Filipino-American veterans, who are mostly now in their 80s, have campaigned for decades to win the benefits they were promised.
They have had some victories. The US Congress has passed a bill allowing thousands to immigrate and become US citizens. Burial rights in national cemeteries came a decade later.
In 2003, President George W. Bush also signed a bill making Filipino-American veterans in the United States eligible for the same federal health care other American veterans receive.
The latest measure seeks to give pension benefits to Filipino veterans living in the Philippines.
Akaka's office said an annual pension of US$3,600 had been proposed for each individual veteran and US$4,500 for a married veteran.
The provision would cost an estimated US$24 million in its first year and less each year after that.
Akaka told the Senate earlier this month that some 18,000 Filipino World War II veterans were still alive and that only a few of them were expected to live in another decade.
souce: goodnewspilipinas.com
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Topic: Obama supports US bill to benefit Filipino war vets (Read 2546 times)