Veterans party-list organization runs anew for House seat

MANILA, Philippines - Consistent with its mandated mission — to uplift the well-being of war veterans — that began in 1998, the Veterans Freedom Party (VFP) announced that as the Comelec-accredited party-list organization of the veterans sector, it will seek to retain its House seat in May 2010.

Party chairman and former Camarines Sur and Veterans Party-List Representative, Postmaster General and Secretary of Tourism Eduardo Pilapil made this announcement at the recent Party-List Assembly held in Taguig City.

Noting that while Filipino World War II Veterans are fewer in actual numbers, the VFP continues to gain strength and solidarity with the addition to its ranks of the war veterans’ widows, sons, daughters and grandchildren, many of whom are now of voting and even senior age, and strongly committed to preserving and protecting the war veterans’ honor and spiritual and material legacies to the nation.

As an integral part of the veterans’ many socio-economic endeavors, Pilapil said the VFP is thankful to the national government for helping war veterans anew with the signing into law of the expanded Senior Citizens Act by the President.

He explained that the VFP will also continue to labor for new legislation aimed at benefiting war veterans, through measures for increased benefits, programs to help solve the problems caused by global warming and its resulting ill effects on our environment, payment of the long-outstanding total administrative disability pensions of veterans over 70 years of age and the pension differentials due to AFP Retirees, and more livelihood opportunities for war veterans’ descendants.

The VFP has held a seat in the Philippine House of Representatives since 1998, after winning in the party-list elections of 1998 and 2004. It also garnered more than enough votes in 2001 for two seats, but certain Supreme Curt decisions prevented its nominees from holding office. In the 2007 elections, additional Supreme Court decisions pertinent to the Party-List law and amending Comelec party-list formula for winning allowed the VFP representative to take the seat.

Pilapil strongly urged and appealed to his fellow war veterans’ descendants to start showing their true worth and strong presence in the forthcoming party-list elections, pointing out that the responsibility to protect and defend their sector and legacies was fast being transferred to their shoulders by the aging war veterans. — Veterans Freedom Party