Defense Department honors US senator

For championing the cause of Filipino war veterans, United States Sen. Daniel Inouye received yesterday the Outstanding Achievement Medal from Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz, the highest award conferred by the Department of National Defense (DND) on a foreign dignitary.

In the US Senate, Inouye, a Democrat from Hawaii, has spearheaded major legislative efforts towards naturalization rights and benefits for Filipinos who fought with American soldiers during World War II.

He was among the principal authors of the Immigration Act of 1990, which allowed Filipino World War II veterans to become US citizens.

Inouye vowed to continue efforts to give Filipino veterans the same rights and benefits given their American counterparts.

"Well, number one, we’ll continue our work. The first step was to provide the first promise of becoming citizens of the United States and then, step by step, the benefits. For example, as citizens, they are entitled to social security and to health care," he said.

Inouye said that now they are going over the final details of the benefits that would be given to Filipino war veterans.

"For example, they should get hospital care and somehow on what we call the service-connected disabilities and some old age benefits — so we are going to details now. I hope to speed up the process," he said.

On his initiative, an $800,000 US Congress-funded FilCom Community Center was set up at Waipahu, Hawaii. Along with fellow Hawaii Sen. Daniel Akaka, Inouye has been lobbying for an amendment to US immigration laws that would grant special immigrant status to children of Filipino WWII veterans so that they could be reunited with their parents.

Inouye also said he was "deeply moved" by the results of the ongoing collaborative efforts with the Philippines, particularly in bringing about peace and development in some formerly war-torn areas of Mindanao.