Filams, vets press Pelosi to act

July 30, 2008  --  Got something to say?
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Aides say vote set for September

WASHINGTON D.C. = Filipino Americans and veterans groups have all urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring the Senate-approved veterans equity bill (S-1315) to the House floor for a “make or break” vote before Congress adjourns in September.
Leading the call are the National Federation of Filipino American
Associations (NaFFAA), other supporters of Filipino veterans and Philippine Ambassador to the US Willy C. Gaa.
“Time is running out for our aging veterans,” NaFFAA National Chair Alma Kern said as she called on the House leadership “to act decisively” because “next year may be too late.”
In a statement issued on July 26, the 67th anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s order to organize the Philippine military under US command, Ambassador Gaa urged everyone “to work together to push” fpr the veterans’ bill in the House and “correct a grave injustice”.
He said: “Today, I call on everyone to support all efforts to win for our Filipino World War II Veterans, who heeded the call of the President of the United States of America and who fought alongside

Americans under the American flag, the recognition and benefits that they so justly deserve.”
Gaa said “Roosevelt’s order is at the heart of our continuing struggle to achieve recognition and equity for our brave veterans. It is
the most compelling argument that supports our efforts to correct the
injustice that resulted from the passage of the Rescission Act of 1946.”
In a recent meeting on Capitol Hill, Rep. Mike Honda (D-Campbell CA), chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus; key aides of Speaker Pelosi (D-San Francisco CA), Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-So. Carolina), VA Cmte. Chair Bob Filner (D-CA), Assistant to the Speaker Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles CA) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista CA), have assured supporters of the equity bill, namely ACFV, NaFFAA, NAFVE and Philippine Embassy officials, that they are doing their best to help.
These groups are now planning to assess and intensify the campaign to get more House members to support S. 1315 before Congress adjourns on Sept. 26. The next several weeks will be crucial.
Based on the House staff’s realistic count, the fight will be hard. There is a lack of 40 votes to ensure a simple majority of 218 to pass the equity bill. The House is composed of 435 members. As of now, only 143 out of the 236 Democrats and 37 out of the 199 Republicans are in favor of the bill.
Pelosi’s staff said more than a dozen members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats caucus (51 votes) had clearly expressed their reluctance to vote for S.1315.
Rep. Stephen Buyer (R-Indiana), Republican ranking member and former
chairman of the VA Committee, with the help of the American Legion
Washington DC officials dissuaded House Republican members from
supporting S 1315 because of their unfounded claim that funds would be
taken from VA disability programs. This issue was clarified by Sen.
Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and resolved by the overwhelming vote of 96 to 1 in the full Senate. In addition certain vulnerable freshmen Democrats up for re-election are privately worried about this issue.
The Speaker’s and the Democratic Whip’s staff were hopeful the bill will be approved during the September vote if supporters get enough votes during the August 1-Labor Day recess

In an open letter to the Speaker, Kern expressed “the growing
frustration among our grassroots supporters over the perceived inaction that may doom passage of the equity bill this year.” Kern added that the Filipino American community is doing its utmost to enlist more supporters for the measure, and “we remain confident that a bipartisan consensus will prevail.”
Kern also cited the anniversary of President Roosevelt’s order putting the Filipino soldiers under the command of US Gen. Douglas MacArthur in World War II. “Our veterans and our community look to your leadership to seize this historic moment and make good America’s promise to these veterans,” Kern wrote.
She expressed surprise why Pelosi, who has been a “consistent and steadfast” supporter of the Filipino World War II veterans’ cause, has thus far failed to bring the bill, which was approved by the Senate by a 96-1 vote several months ago, to the floor for a vote.
“We are doing our utmost best, Madam Speaker, to enlist more co-sponsors and ensure victory for S. 1315. And you can rest assured that NaFFAA and the more than 3 million Filipinos, who now live and work in this great nation of ours, are looking up to you to right this wrong and give our veterans their long-awaited day of redemption after 60 long year,” Kern said.
Most of us are the sons, daughters and relatives of these veterans.
@12PTLA = By Rodney J. Jaleco

LEESBURG, Virginia. Guillermo Rumingan sat in a handsome, well-furnished office in a daughter’s home here, listening intently to a teleconference with other veterans and their supporters plotting what could be the last chapter of a historic run to push the Filipino veterans’ equity bill.
From Hawaii to California to Washington State to Virginia, they weighed their options that seemed to thin with each passing hour. After a triumphant 96-1 Senate vote to pass S-1315, which contained provisions for Filipino veterans’ equity, the bill is now stalled in the House of Representatives.
Although the 110th Congress is scheduled to run until the last week of September, veterans activists are looking at the week beginning August 4 as the last window to realize an over 60-year-old dream. If nothing happens by then, all the historic gains achieved this year will come to naught.
They had appointment with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week, but she had to be somewhere else so one of her staff members faced the veterans led by Eric Lachica, executive director of the Virginia-based American Coalition of Filipino Veterans.
“She wanted 290 sure votes for S-1315,” Rumingan tells ABS-CBN’s Balitang America. The veterans’ supporters on Capitol Hill wanted the House to suspend the rules and adopt the Senate version in toto that would guarantee an average $300 monthly pension to an estimated 18,000 Filipino World War II veterans in the Philippines and US. The House version, authored principally by California Congressman Bob Filner, chairman of the House veterans’ affairs committee, provided for a higher $900 pension but even its most ardent advocates admit this had little chance of passing, and if it did, would likely get vetoed anyway.
By the veterans’ reckoning they only have 244 bipartisan votes. With just two weeks left, many of them are growing desperate. “We’ll take the gamble,” one supporter said at the teleconference.
But all that depends on whether Pelosi will go along with the gambit. Despite repeated assurances – the last during a meeting with President Arroyo in Washington DC last month – she has refused to put S-1315 on the floor. Many veterans are perplexed.
“She’s supported us since 1990,” Rumingan disclosed. “She was a perennial co-author (of the equity bill), a main supporter in our quest for equity and justice for Filipino veterans. I wonder now that she is the Speaker, when she has the power, why doesn’t she do it now?” he averred.
One explanation perhaps is that S-1315 also carries wide-ranging benefits for most American veterans, including those coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Rumingan noted that Pelosi “does not want to lose”. Pelosi comes from California, which has the biggest veteran population in the US.
The equity provisions for Filipino veterans in the Philippines remain a contentious issue. The American Legion, a highly influential veterans’ organization and erstwhile supporter of Filipino veterans rights, opposes S-1315’s equity provisions because they believe it will divert additional benefits to veterans in the Philippines that should otherwise have been spent for them.
Former Congressman Ben Gillman, who’s actively lobbying for the equity bill, has signaled that it’s crucial they raise the plight of aging Filipino veterans – most in their 80s and 90s – to national attention again. At the teleconference, they discussed “dramatic action” that ranged from starting an “honor roll call” of Filipino veterans who have died waiting for equity at the World War II Memorial in Washington DC to protest marches in front of the White House.


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