US House panel votes to give Pinoy war vets monthly pension

WASHINGTON – A US House committee voted on Tuesday to give a $500 monthly pension to Filipino World War II veterans living in the Philippines and a $900 monthly pension to those who have become naturalized US citizens.

The House Committee on Veterans Affairs voted along party lines – 15 Democrats to 12 Republicans – in a markup hearing for House Resolution 760, which seeks to amend title 38 of the United States Code to consider military service for the then government of the Commonwealth of the Philippines to have been active service for the US for purposes of VA benefits.

The House committee move follows a similar vote by the US Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs last month, which authorized monthly pensions of up to $375 for Filipino veterans and their widows for their service to the US more than 60 years ago.

The Senate measure provides for a monthly pension of $300 for Filipino veterans who are single, $375 for married veterans and $200 for widows.

Both House and Senate committee bills providing non-combat-related disability pensions to Filipino veterans will have to be approved by the full Senate and the House of Representatives and could still be torpedoed at the last minute over the issue of money.

The Senate version of the bill is estimated to cost $300 million over a 10-year period.

The House version of the bill comes closes to full equity for Filipino veterans, putting them on par with their American comrades. The estimated cost of $110 million for the first year, however, may make fiscally conservative legislators balk.

According to official records there are 18,155 Filipino veterans still alive out of 260,143 inscribed in the US Army roster immediately after the war. About 12,000 of them live in the Philippines and the rest reside in the US. 

The Rescission Act of 1946 stripped Filipino soldiers drafted into US military service in the Philippines of their US veterans’ status.

While the committee was debating the pensions bill, VA Secretary Jim Nicholson abruptly announced his resignation effective no later than Oct. 1 after months of battling criticism over the shoddy treatment of veterans injured in the Iraq war.

Last April, the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans (ACFV) called on Nicholson to resign for allegedly mismanaging his department and opposing full equity for Filipino World War II veterans.

Nicholson has been at the center of a storm over the awarding in 2006 of more than $3.8 million in bonuses to senior VA officials at a time of serious budget shortfall, a backlog of disability cases and a staffing shortage in his department.

With a resolution in sight on the pensions issue, the jockeying for credit or assignment of blame for failure to get the veterans top dollar has began among some Filipino community leaders, with charges and countercharges being hurled at each other.