JFAV Pays Tribute to Rep. Tom Lantos,(D-CA), 80

Los Angeles – The Justice for Filipino American Veterans(JFAV) pays tribute to Rep. Tom Lantos of California who passed away.

JFAV learned that Lantos, 80, passed away at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in suburban Maryland.

Lantos, a Democrat who chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee, disclosed last month that he had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. He has supported the veterans equity bill .

He served his constituency which has large Filipino population at Northern California district, which takes in the southwest portion of San Francisco and suburbs to the south including Lantos' home of San Mateo.

Lantos had assumed his committee chairmanship just a year earlier, when Democrats retook control of Congress. He conducted house hearings on human rights violations in the Philippines last year. In the senate and house hearings, the US Congress found the Philippine government responsible for the spate of political killings in the Philippines and tied US military aid to the human rights situation in the country.

Lantos, who was elected to the House in 1980, founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1983. In October 2007, as Foreign Affairs chairman, Lantos defied administration opposition by moving through his committee a measure that would have recognized the World War I-era killings of Armenians as a genocide, something strongly opposed by Turkey. The bill has not passed the House. He is a holocaust survivor of the Nazi occupation of Hungary during the Second World War.

JFAV offers the sincerest condolence with Lantos’ family and friend and considered him a true friend and an ally of the Filipino people.

For more information about jfav contact Al P. Garcia at 213-241-0906 or email at jfav_causa (at) yahoo.com