Patience Pays for Filipino Veterans

Franco Arcebal had been waiting 57 years for this day. Filling out a form in the Veterans Affairs center in Los Angeles on Monday, the wiry Philippine American said he couldn’t wait to receive the plastic red, white and blue card that would recognize him as a veteran of the U.S. armed forces.

He carried a black briefcase filled with discharge papers and other documents that showed he had volunteered in North Luzon in 1944 to gather intelligence for the U.S. military in the Philippines.

“I came to this office 15 years ago for the first time and asked for dentures,” said Arcebal, 80, of Anaheim. “They said, ‘Hey, you’re not qualified. You’re not a veteran.’ ”

He and other Philippine Americans have been seeking recognition since Congress passed a Rescission Act in 1946 that denied medical benefits and veterans burial to Filipino soldiers who had served in the U.S. armed forces in the Far East. Those who could prove that they had been injured during the war were eligible for half the disability pay awarded U.S. veterans.

This month, President Bush signed two laws reversing that act and giving full military benefits to Filipino veterans.

Since then, community activists have been trying to spread the word among the newly eligible. On Monday, they and hundreds of veterans, wearing their old service caps decorated with American and Filipino flags, filled the lobby of the Ambulatory Care Center, where the VA was receiving applications, armed with photocopies of tattered service papers, tax records and Medicare cards.

They cheered “mabuhay Bush!” -- long live Bush, in Tagalog -- and sang bars from “Old Soldiers Never Die” as Filipino community leaders handed a stack of 306 applications to VA officials.

The new eligibility IDs “will be timely Christmas cards that will boost the morale of the 8,000 sickly U.S.-based Filipino veterans,” said Eric Lachica, executive director of the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans, an advocacy organization based in Washington. About 2,000 of those veterans live in California, Lachica said.

Lachica, who had been lobbying for the legislation for eight years, said he organized Monday’s event to get the ball rolling.

“Our guys have only a few years left,” he said. “Many of these guys need their comrades to get this done.”

Bush, who has expressed a desire to maintain strong ties with the Philippines, an important ally in the war on terrorism, had supported the veterans’ campaign. In May, when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo visited the White House, he pledged to help aging Philippine American veterans.

An estimated 200,000 Filipinos fought with the U.S. military during World War II. Through the years, Congress has incrementally extended some benefits to them; in 1990, for example, it granted citizenship to those living in the United States. But until this month, only one small group -- the “old scouts,” who had been full-fledged members of U.S. Army units -- had received full military benefits.

John Weems, a manager of the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, who received the 5-inch stack of applications, said the benefits were “long overdue.”

Weems, who served 30 years in the Air Force, told the noisy gathering: “The Department of Veterans Affairs is here to serve your needs. You can count on us.”

On Monday, more than 75 people received their veterans identification cards and attended talks explaining the benefits.

Arcado Basat, 78, of Los Angeles, who fought the Japanese in the mountains and jungles in 1945, proudly pulled his identification card out of the plastic sleeve that also contained his bus pass.

“It’s a good thing people are sympathetic with the plight of veterans,” he said. “At least we get something for this, like health care. We need this.”

Arcebal, who is vice president of the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans, said: “Practically all of us are 80 years old. We all have ailments -- prostate, dental, eye, ear, arthritis.”

Arcebal said he suffers from lung problems because Japanese captors hit him in the back with a baseball bat, and memory loss because they tortured him with electric shocks. He pays for his medical bills with Supplemental Security Income and Medi-Cal.

But no Philippine American likes being a “mendicant,” he said. “We’d rather go to the VA than get dole-outs from welfare,” he said.