Eligible World War WII Filipino veterans application OK'd

MANILA, Philippines - The US Department of Veterans Affairs had approved the application of 12,846 eligible Filipino World War WII veterans and paid a total of nearly P7.2 billion to qualified veterans or their widows.

Approximately half of the nearly P7.2 billion in one-time benefits paid out as of Feb. 16 to Filipino WWII veterans with American citizenship, and the other half to non-US citizen Filipino WW II veterans.

Feb. 16, 2010 was the final day for Filipino WWII veterans to apply for one-time benefits created by the 2009 Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. To date, some 40,000 applications were received. Around 7,000 have been duplicate applications, and 14,500 cases remain pending. These cases will be adjudicated without delay, so that qualified veterans will get their benefit as quickly as possible.

Between Feb. 17, 2009 and Feb. 16, 2010, USDVA held 22 outreach events in partnership with the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO) around the Philippines. USDVA-Manila Director Jon Skelly and his staff appeared in dozens of TV and radio interviews to explain the benefit and the process, and to remind veterans of the deadline.

The USDVA office remained open on Monday, when other embassy offices were closed for the George Washington’s birthday holiday.

USDVA teams were also stationed at PVAO in Quezon City. The USDVA-Manila staff includes 222 Filipino employees, working every day to serve these veterans.

Thanks to RP media

“Thanks to the Philippine news media and our partners at the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, we were able to get the word out about the benefit to veterans living all over the Philippines and in the United States,” Skelly said. “We had thousands of applicants on the final two days at our office and at PVAO, so we really did get the word out.”

Veterans who have already applied for this one-time benefit will receive an acknowledgement receipt from USDVA. There is no need to obtain additional military service information unless requested by USDVA. “We continue to pay around $8 million monthly in previous and continuing benefits to Filipino veterans and their family members. My staff will gladly review records of individual Filipino WW II veterans or their survivors because we want to make sure these heroes are receiving all benefits to which they are entitled,” Skelly said.

Filipino WWII veterans were given until Feb. 16, 2010 to apply for new, one-time benefit created by the 2009 Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.