Two birds with one stone

Every newspaper in the Philippines headlined the story about the United States Congress approving last week a $787 billion stimulus package that included a provision recognizing the role of Filipino war veterans and ordering a lumpsum tax-free payment of cash benefits to them.

After decades of fighting for their rights and their dignity, the Filipino war veterans finally got something for the effort. But the $15,000 for those in the US, and the $9,000 for those in the Philippines are hardly something I would call recognition or restitution.

The money can hardly compensate for their rights, and the manner in which the money is being given does not respect their dignity. The poor Filipino war veterans, all 20,000 of them still hanging on to dear life in their 80s and 90s are still being taken for a ride by America.

Look, the money to be paid the Filipino war veterans is part of the stimulus package. In other words, it is part of the money America has earmarked to fuel a spending spree meant to inject new life to a moribund economy.

Recognizing the role of Filipino war veterans, or words to that effect, is just a plain charade. In reality, it is a brazen act of duplicity. While it appears as if the issues of the Filipino war veterans are finally being addressed, it is really US interests being promoted.

The question begs to be asked, that if the US economy had not collapsed and did not need any stimulus in the form of massive spending and bailing out of ailing companies, would America still have gone ahead and recognized Filipino war veterans and paid them their dues?

I doubt if that would have ever happened. I cannot imagine that, after decades of having consistently refused to give due recognition to Filipino war vets, America would all of a sudden have an inexplicable change of heart.

The hand of America was merely forced by circumstances in which the only way out involved massive spending and numerous bailouts. And always the opportunist whenever it came to American interests, it saw a way to hit two birds with one stone.

The beauty about the whole thing is that the Filipino war veterans are no longer in a position to complain. The $9,000 for those in the Philippines would fetch something like P427,500 or close to half-a-million pesos. That is a lot of money when you are already 90.

But given what the Filipino war veterans have been through, first by laying their lives on the line, and then fighting again to derive nothing more than just compendation for that terrible sacrifice, God knows that kind of money is but a pittance.

Maybe the Americans thought that because the Filipino war veterans served only in the Philippine theater during World War II, it would appear that they were in fact fighting their own war and that America just got caught up in it because of its presence here.

And if it was really the Filipinos’ war, why would America pay restitution to Filipinos fighting their own war? What America seems to conveniently forget that the Philippines was colonial territory at the time, meaning as much part of America as the continental states.

Even Japan saw it that way, which is precisely why Japanese planes struck at Clark right after Pearl Harbor. America was as much in it as the Philippines was in these parts. Unfortunately the togetherness lasted only as far as the hard times were concerned.

It was only because Filipinos needed America more than Americans needed the Philippines that Filipino disappointments were kept in check and prides were swallowed. By the looks of it, there is still a lot of keeping in check and swallowing for Filipinos to do.