US senator nixes $67M add'l funds for Pinoy vets

CHICAGO – United States Sen. Richard Burr has opposed the planned $67-million supplemental fund for Filipino war veterans, saying the US government never promised such benefits in the first place. Burr, a ranking member of the US Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, took the floor last week to oppose the plan of Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Ken Shinseki to transfer $67 million to the Filipino Equity Fund. The supplemental fund is supposed to be taken from the $103 million saved from construction projects for medical facilities and maintenance of Veterans’ Affairs facilities. Under the Equity Fund, Filipino World War II veterans who are US citizens stand to get a lump-sum payment of benefits amounting to $15,000 (about P695,000). Those who are not US citizens, mostly living in the Philippines, are likewise entitled to $9,000 (about P417,000). During the hearing of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for this year, Burr suggested that instead of transferring the amount to the Filipino Equity Fund, it should be allocated for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The PPACA, which would cost about $4 billion for a 10-year period, provides for financial stipend for a family member who would take care of a military service member. The financial stipend under the PPACA, said Burr, is “no different than (what) we would have paid some stranger off the street," in an apparent swipe at the Equity Fund. The Equity Fund was originally allotted $198 million in funds, of which $188 million was already used. In 2008, the junior senator likewise led the opposition to the $198-million allocation for the Equity Fund, before it was lumped into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed by President Barack Obama last year. In last week’s hearing, Burr recalled the same arguments he used two years ago against the Equity Fund. "First, it was not the right priority given the other needs that existed in our veteran community. Second, I don't think it is appropriate to pay a benefit that is not adjusted for the different standards of living that exist between the Philippines and the United States. And finally, I don't think these benefits were ever promised in the first place," Burr maintained. Sen. Daniel Inouye, however, defended the Equity Fund, saying it was in line with the promise made by then US President Franklin Roosevelt when he asked Filipinos to join the US forces. “I think it is well that we review a bit of the history of World War II. On July 26, 1941, the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, invited the Filipinos, issued a military order and said, ‘Join our forces in the Far East. If you do, at the end of the war, you will be entitled to, well, apply for citizenship and receive all the benefits of a veteran of the United States’," Inouye explained. He added the supplemental fund is urgent, as the US government has long “reneged" on its promise. “We were honor bound to those men who served and got wounded. The emergency is very simple: they are dying by the dozens each day. They are old men. Their average age is 87. They do not have too many months left in their lives," Inouye added. - JA/KBK, GMANews.TV