It's make-or-break for Pinoy vets' bill

By RODNEY J. JALECO
ABS-CBN North America News Bureau

LEESBURG, Virginia - World War II veteran Guillermo Rumingan had a teleconference with other veterans and their supporters and plotted 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 hold sessions 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 an appointment with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week, but she was not available and only 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 told ABS-CBN’s Balitang America.

The Senate version

The veterans’ supporters in Capitol Hill wanted the House to suspend the rules and adopt the Senate version 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 –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.

Too late?

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, Rumingan and the others 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.

Fil-Am activists said an average of 10 veterans a day die of old age or illnesses brought about by old age.

On horizon

The veterans’ groups, meanwhile, also plan to intensify contacts with their congressmen, to ask them to convince Pelosi to put S-1315 on the floor.

Lachica said they are working on a July 26 "horizon". That was the day 67 years ago when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the order conscripting Filipino soldiers to the US military. The clouds of war were swiftly gathering and America was anxious to fast-track the defense of their Pacific Commonwealth.

"We are aiming for Speaker Pelosi to announce a date (when S-1315 will be put to the floor) before August 1," Lachica said.

Rumingan, who turns 83 in December, is more fortunate than most of his comrades.

He was a Sergeant First Class in the Philippine Scouts and was attached to the US Corps of Engineers when he was discharged on a medical disability in 1951.

Optimizing his veterans benefits, he was able to bring all his seven children to America (one has passed away). All are American citizens and reaped success in their respective fields, affording Rumingan and his wife Fe, a relatively comfortable retirement.

However, he wanted to go home to a farm he bought in his hometown in Cabanatuan. The only thing holding him back is the fight for the equity bill.

"I could not leave, knowing that my comrades are suffering. It pains me," Rumingan said.

"For me it’s the dignity and honor," he said of the equity bill.

"The last benefit I’m fighting for because it will give me full recognition as an US Army veteran. Before I bite the dust, before I meet my Maker, I want to feel I am a full-fledged US veteran and look at my children and grandchildren straight in the eye and say I am a US Army veteran," he said.