Hillary wooing Fil-Am voters

WASHINGTON – Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged that if elected president she would work for the passage of a Filipino veterans equity bill, which seeks to provide a monthly US pension for World War II veterans living in the Philippines.

In a statement to commemorate the 66th anniversary of the fall of Bataan, Clinton saluted the brave Filipino men and women “who gave their lives for the freedom that citizens of both the Philippines and the United States now enjoy.”

“To those who have survived, I pledge that America will not forget the hardships that you and your family endured from that war,” she said.

Sen. Clinton and Sen. Barak Obama are locked in a long and bitter battle for the Democratic presidential nomination to determine who will face Republican John McCain in the November election.

In her statement Clinton said as president she looks forward to working with Sen. Daniel Inouye and Rep. Bob Filner, staunch supporters of Filipino war veterans, to get the equity bill passed.

“This is a matter of restoring the honor and dignity of these courageous veterans and I will continue to support and fight for this legislation,” she said.

Filipino-American community leaders have been urging statements of support from the presidential candidates in the light of a new Senate bill seeking to delete Philippine-based veterans from a list of persons eligible to receive veterans’ pensions.

The bill, filed by Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, is called the “Veterans Benefits Enhancement Act of 2008” and is a counterproposal to the original omnibus veterans bill (S1315) called the “Veterans Benefits Enhancement Act of 2007” which had already been reported out of committee last June.

The 2007 bill proposed a monthly pension of $300 for Filipino World War II veterans living in the Philippines who are single, $375 for married veterans and $200 for widows.

Burr said this bill “would take money away from helping veterans of the war on terror and instead send the money overseas.”

He said his counterproposal “would eliminate the provision that creates a special pension for non-US citizens, Filipino veterans who live in the Philippines and do not have war-time injuries.”

This would free up over $220 million to spend on benefits for veterans of the Iraqi war while still providing over $100 million to grant full equity to Filipino veterans living in the United States.

Only about 18,000 veterans still survive out of about 250,000 Filipinos who fought in World War II under the American flag. About 12,000 of them live in the Philippines and the rest are in the US.

Embassy officials and veterans leaders believe some compromise on the amount to be provided to Filipino veterans may be necessary if only to get S1315 on the Senate floor for an up or down vote.

A joint executive-legislative delegation from Manila is expected to arrive in Washington later this month to lobby for its passage.