Pinoy WW2 vets sue US government for benefits denied

One of US President Barack Obama's first acts as president was to sign a law that would enable Filipino World War II veterans to receive US benefits that had long been denied them. More than a year later, many of these veterans, now in their 80s and 90s, have not received their benefits, with numerous applications having been denied because many veterans' records were destroyed in a fire in the 1970s. Last Friday, a group of veterans represented by Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy and the Tancinco Law Offices filed a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs in the Northern District of California in San Francisco to seek what was obliged by law.

It's a race against time. Once these veterans pass away, their benefits cannot go to their next of kin. Only living veterans are entitled to the benefits, which include lump sums: Filipino veterans living in the U.S. would receive $15,000 and Filipino veterans living in the Philippines would receive $9,000. The Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation (FVEC) signed by Obama set aside $198 million to cover the one-time payments. According to Pete McCloskey of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, the lead attorney in the case, “As a veteran myself, I know the sacrifices that have been made by these soldiers in both blood and tears. Compounding one injustice made decades ago with new injustices today do not reflect the true spirit of America. Hopefully, this suit will serve as a catalyst to convince the VA to do what is right." During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt recruited soldiers of the Philippine Commonwealth Army who were then U.S. nationals into American military service. Approximately 250,000 Filipino soldiers fought alongside the U.S. Army against the Japanese and were promised the same benefits that were given to the U.S. Army soldiers. Click here for larger version. In 1946, U.S. Congress passed the Rescission Act which stripped the Filipino soldiers of their promised benefits. The Rescission Act said Filipino soldiers “shall not be deemed to have been active military, naval, or air service for the purposes of any law of the United States conferring rights, privileges, or benefits..." For over 60 years, Filipino veterans have fought to get official recognition of their honorable U.S. military service during World War II and to be declared eligible to receive full veterans benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Many of the Filipino veterans who sent in their applications to the Veterans Affairs office had their applications denied because they were not on a so-called “Missouri List", a database that was intended to include all of the personnel who served in the U.S. armed forces in the 20th century. This list is an authoritative source of reference but is not an exclusive list of military veterans. On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at NPRC destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel files. Of those destroyed, 80 percent were Army personnel who were discharged from November 1, 1912 to January 1, 1960. There were no duplicate copies of the records that were destroyed. As the VA acknowledges, Filipino veterans were dissuaded from putting their name on this list because the Japanese military had access to that information and would find and kill the family members of those veterans who put their name on the List. Despite this historical fact, according to the veterans' lawyers, the VA has denied the applications of all Filipino veterans who are not on the List and have made no effort to develop any alternative mechanism for verifying service in World War II. A copy of the complaint can be found at www.cpmlegal.com -- HS, GMANews.TV