FULL EQUITY NOW

PASS H.R. 677, Filipino WWII Veterans Equity Act

September is a critical month for H.R. 677!  Currently there are 188 co-sponsors of H.R. 677.  The passage of the Filipino WWII Veterans Equity Act is dependent on the action our community makes!  Let's make history or rather change history....  Please e-mail, call, fax, write your local representative now!  Attached are 'Talking Points' and a list of all the representatives that are not signed on to the bill. 

 

Please visit www.fullequitynow.com for additional lobbying materials and information on the Full Equity campaign. 

 

Contact:  Angela Angel

National Network for Veterans Equity

Student Action for Veterans Equity

1099 Mission Street

SF, CA 94103

415.255.2347

 

 

New Jersey

 

Frank LoBiondo, 2nd                             Republican            202.225.6572                          lobiondo@mail.house.gov

Jim Saxton, 1st                                        Republican            202.225.4765                          www.house.gov/saxton

Christopher Smith, 4th                          Republican            202.225.3765                          www.house.gov/chrissmith

Scott Garrett, 5th                                    Republican            202.225.4465                          www.house.gov/garrett

Michael Ferguson, 7th                          Republican            202.225.5361                          www.house.gov/ferguson

Rodney Frelinghuysen, 11th               Republican            202.225.5034                          rodney.frelinghuysen@mail.house.gov

 

New York

 

Steve Israel, 2nd                                     Democrat               202.225.3335                          www.house.gov/israel

Peter King, 3rd                                       Republican            202.225.7896                          peter.king@mail.house.gov

Vito Fossella, 13th                 Republican            202.225.3371                          vito.fossella@mail.house.gov

Sue Kelly, 19th                                       Republican            202.225.5441                          www.house.gov/suekelly

John Sweeney, 20th                              Republican            202.225.5614                          www.house.gov/sweeney

John McHugh, 23rd                              Republican            202.225.4611                          www.house.gov/mchugh

Sherwood Boehlert, 24th                      Republican            202.225.3665                          rep.boehlert@mail.house.gov

James Walsh, 25th                 Republican            202.225.3701                          rep.james.walsh@mail.house.gov

Thomas Reynolds 26th                         Republican            202.225.5265                          www.house.gov/reynolds

Jack Quinn 27th                                     Republican            202.225.3306                          www.house.gov/quinn

Amory Houghton 29th                         Republican            202.225.3161                          www.house.gov/slaughter

 

Pennsylvania

Philip English 3rd                                  Republican            202.225.5406                          www.house.gov/english

Melissa Hart 4th                                    Republican            202.225.2565                          hart.house.gov

John Peterson 5th                                  Republican            202.225.5121                          john.peterson@mail.house.gov

Jim Gerlach 6th                                       Republican            202.225.4315                          www.house.gov/gerlach

Curt Weldon 7th                                    Republican            202.225.2011                          curtpa07@mail.house.gov

Bill Shuster 9th                                       Republican            202.225.2431                          www.house.gov/shuster

Don Sherwood 10th                              Republican            202.225.3731                          www.house.gov/sherwood

Pat Toomey 15th                                    Republican            202.225.6411                          rep.toomey.pa15@mail.house.gov

Joseph Pitts 16th                                   Republican            202.225.2411                          www.house.gov/pitts

Timothy Murphy 18th                          Republican            202.225.2301                          murphy@mail.house.gov

Todd Platts 19th                                    Republican            202.225.5836                          www.house.gov/platts

 

NNVE TALKING POINTS/MESSAGES

 

Filipino WWII Veterans fought under the Armed Forces of the United States

 

The Philippines was a territory of the United States during World War II

On July 26, 1941 US President Roosevelt issued a military order calling all organized military forces of the government of the Philippines into the service of the Armed Forces of the United States

Filipino Soldiers fought under the American Flag and under the direction and control of the US pursuant to President Roosevelt’s order

 

Filipino WWII Veterans Jointly fought with the American Soldiers

 

Filipino veterans fought side by side with the Americans against the Japanese

Many Filipino veterans risk their lives defending the freedom and democracy we now enjoy

Filipino veterans served in the epic Battles of Bataan & Corregidor and suffered the horrors of Death March with the American soldiers

Filipino veterans were left fighting & defending great human freedoms even after MacArthur was forced to withdraw its forces

 

Rescission Act of 1946 Unjustly Discriminates Against the Filipino WWII Veterans

 

After the war in February 1946, US Congress passed the 1946 Rescission Act with the provision depriving the Filipino veterans the benefits of the US veterans by declaring that the Filipino military service “should not be deemed to be US military service for purpose of the benefits

 

VA officials considered Filipino military service as US veterans until passage of this Rescission Act

Only the Filipino veterans were denied full US veterans status

Soldiers of more than 66 US allied countries during WWII were granted US veteran status except the Filipinos resulting in unjust, unequal treatment of our Filipino veterans

 

Filipino soldiers deserves EQUITY and JUSTICE Now!

 

The Filipino veterans are now in their late seventies and eighties still awaiting for equity

Filipino veterans deserves recognitions and their honor and dignity restored

Filipino veterans must be recognized for their gallantry, loyalty and sacrifices in defending freedom and democracy we now fully enjoy

Filipino veterans fought with patriotism and bravery under the American flag, risked their lives, made sacrifices during WWII to preserve continued blessings of peace, freedom & democracy

HR 677 Filipino Veterans Equity Act of 2003 is now pending in the House will restore full US veterans status to Filipino Veterans

HR 677 must be passed for the Filipino veterans to achieve their EQUITY and to correct the injustice and discrimination resulting from the Rescission Act

 

 

Let me share it with you

Justice to the Filipino Veterans...Washington consumed by the US Presidential scandal this weekend buried this article written
by George F Will who I think is the best political writer of my time.  His wit and style of presenting human story has fascinated me and because this one is close to our cause we should read it.  I just hope that he could convince others not only the compassion but it is the right thing to do.
 

 SAN DIEGOCasiano Santos was among the lucky ones. On April 9, 1942, U.S. forces on the Bataan peninsula and their Filipino allies, including Santos, surrendered to Japanese forces, and the Death March began. Santos, a Filipino inducted into the U.S. Army 17 days after Pearl Harbor, escaped from the march on April 14.

 He joined guerrilla forces and fought with World War I-vintage Springfield rifles until suffering serious shrapnel wounds on March 27, 1945. Another Filipino guerrilla fighter -- he was 16 when he picked up his gun -- was Resty Supnet, who this morning is seated next to Santos, doing justice to a large American breakfast of pancakes and wondering, with Santos, why American justice has not been done to Filipinos whose fighting, according to Douglas MacArthur, saved America many dollars and lives.

 The question is whether Santos, Supnet and others like them should be eligible for the full benefits accorded U.S. veterans. The vocabulary of controversy concerns money, but what is really at issue is another value that colors many political controversies: recognition.

 Their advocate is Rep. Bob Filner, a Democrat who grew up in New York, was a civil rights Freedom Rider in 1961, spent two months in a Mississippi jail, and worked on Hubert Humphrey's Senate staff. Filner discovered the Filipino veterans' cause when, canvassing for votes, he kept knocking on doors that were opened by Filipino Americans who, being thoroughly acculturated to their adopted land, knew how to hector a congressman.

 The 2 million Filipino Americans comprise the nation's second largest Asian community. There are approximately 96,000 of them in San Diego County, more than half in Filner's district -- more than any other congressional district outside of Hawaii. This is because Filipinos used enlistment in the military as a gateway to citizenship. Filner says that of the approximately 250,000 Filipinos, here and in the Philippines, whose war service arguably should have qualified them for status as U.S. veterans, about 70,000 are still alive.

 Filner's legislation would give pensions and health care benefits to those veterans and their families, about a quarter of whom are U.S. citizens. In 1946 the Philippines was given its independence and Congress said, never mind that the United States conscripted many of you, you are the Philippine government's problem.

 The World War II generation is dying off, so the potential cost of according them increased entitlements is declining about 18 percent a year. In another decade mortality will have made the issue moot. Meanwhile, Congress is increasingly composed of people with no military experience, and for whom even Vietnam is just a faintly remembered secondhand experience of this century's violence.

 In 1946 Congress appropriated $200 million for Filipino armed forces. Today about 13,000 Filipino veterans of certain units or their survivors get about $55 million a year in U.S. disability payments, and the Congressional Budget Office says it would cost $4.5 billion over five years for full benefits for all Filipino veterans.

 Filner says that number has been inflated by making assumptions designed to maximize potential costs, and anyway he is panting to compromise because, for the veterans, the issue really is not money. The goal of the septuagenarian and octogenarian veterans -- some of whom recently picketed the White House wearing faded uniforms and sparkling medals -- is public attestation of their service. That makes this one more episode that proves the poverty of materialism as the sovereign explanation of political action.

 The quest for intangibles such as honor and prestige drives the behavior of nations more than many so-called "realists" recognize. And the yearning for recognition -- a revolt against mere money as the measure of all things -- goes far to explain the moral energy of the civil rights movement. More recent and less admirable examples of contested recognitions are the curriculum wars on campuses, particularly the campaigns to treat the teaching of history as reparation, conferring status by emphasizing the importance of individuals, groups and events not hitherto considered consequential.

 The fact that such history often involves bestowing bogus significance does not discredit all "recognition politics." The Filipino veterans' cause has come to a brief boil on the 100th anniversary of America's acquisition of the Philippines as a result of the Spanish-American War. It is almost, but not quite, too late to act on a truth spoken 52 years ago: "There can be no question but that the Philippine veteran is entitled to benefits bearing a reasonable relation to those received by the American veteran, with whom he fought side by side." So said a World War I veteran, former captain of artillery Harry Truman. ..George F  Will, AP & Washington POST Aug 16,1998..
 

Nestor Palugod Enriquez