Filipino Vets’ Dream Fades in L.A. Slums : World War II: A Los Angeles attorney brought the three dozen old men to the U.S. on credit. They find themselves living in poverty and chronic debt.

The offer to fly to America and pay later was like a dream come true to the old and impoverished Filipino veterans in Manila.

They had been dreaming of such an opportunity for 50 years, ever since America promised U.S. citizenship to Filipinos who fought in World War II.

But shortly after the war, America rescinded its promise and the offer wasn’t renewed until 1990. By then, the men had grown old. Many were poor and had no way of getting to America when they became U.S. citizens.

And then, Los Angeles attorney Salvador Paja provided the financing for their plane fare to the United States and a place to live--all on credit. It seemed like an answered prayer. But the three dozen veterans who accepted have exchanged the poverty of the Philippines for the slums of Los Angeles.

They are living in rundown, roach-infested apartments owned by Paja. Some of the units have no hot water and at times this fall there was no heat.

The apartments are unfurnished and most have no refrigerators. Many of the veterans are in debt to Paja for loans that include hundreds of dollars in service charges and for which he collects a monthly interest rate of 2%, an annual rate of 24%, Paja and the veterans say. The veterans say their only income is $600 a month each in government-funded Supplemental Security Income benefits for the aged poor.

Paja said he helped the veterans immigrate “as a humanitarian consideration.”

“I am only providing them with temporary shelter, instead of them sleeping in the street,” said Paja, who maintains an office-apartment in one of his rundown buildings.

As for the veterans, America is a dream that will not die.

“America is the land of Paradise,” said 70-year-old Dominidor Jardinez, who served with U.S. occupation troops in Okinawa immediately after the war.

The three dozen elderly men are among some 10,000 Filipino veterans who have chosen U.S. citizenship during the last few years.

The opportunity to become citizens came when the U.S. Congress agreed in 1990 to reinstate the wartime promise to Filipino veterans after nearly 50 years of wrangling over the issue.

Many of the veterans who elect citizenship are exploited and live in poor conditions, according to Gil Roy Gorre, information officer for the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles.

Gorre is bitter over the U.S. government’s refusal to grant citizenship to Filipino veterans when the men were young and could have worked their way into the good life.

“They risked their necks in the war,” he said. “They shed their blood.”

Now that the veterans are old, said Gorre, only those who are poor choose American citizenship and immigration. But, he said, those who come to the United States still believe deeply in the American Dream.

“These people look at the United States with such a romanticized view,” said Gorre. “They feel that just to get here is a culmination of their life’s dreams.

“To live under these circumstances,” he said of the veterans renting from Paja, “is just a tragic thing.”

At an age when most Americans are well into retirement, Jardinez and his fellow veterans came to the United States “to seek a good fortune.”

After the war, they worked as truck drivers, farmers, fishermen, low-level officials, policemen--any job they could get in the poverty-stricken Philippines. They married, raised families and in their old age lived without pensions in huts or with grown children.

Now that they are in America, many of them dream of finding work in order to send for their wives and children.

Unable to find work because of their age and backgrounds, they spend their days seeking medical care or scouring the city for food, clothing and furniture. With the onset of cold weather, warm clothing is a priority, and they search for used jackets at yard sales.

But they are a tough group of men. Some carry scars from Japanese shrapnel, machine guns or bayonets. Their only bitterness is connected to U.S. government regulations that deny full veterans’ benefits to Filipinos who were guerrilla fighters or soldiers of the postwar occupation but give such benefits to regular troops who served during the war. They rarely complain about their living conditions, and most of them say they are glad to be in America.

Take Gregorio A. DeGuzman, 72, who lives with four other veterans in one of Paja’s tiny one-bedroom apartments in an old one-story, pink stucco quadriplex hard by the Hollywood Freeway.

DeGuzman sat in a chair in a dim room and proudly presented a military document with his name and the names of 49 other men: “Sgt. Gregorio DeGuzman . . . Philippine Army, for wounds received in action at Luzon, Philippine Islands on 8 April, 1945.”

The ribbon on his Purple Heart has long since worn out from handling, but the shrapnel scar on the right side of his neck has not gone away. He is proud of his military service and wishes he could get a replacement for the medal, but doesn’t know how to go about it.

“We fought side by side with the Americans,” said DeGuzman. “We guarded them when they slept and they guarded us when we slept.”

As he spoke, a fat roach took its time crawling down the wall behind him.

DeGuzman arrived in America last January. He came, he explained in slow, formally phrased sentences, “Because I want to experience the honor of being a veteran and I wanted to follow up on all the benefits that a veteran may take.

“At the same time,” he said, “I want to see the American people for whom I have gratitude. Because if it weren’t for them, we would not have been liberated.”

Here is how the fly-now, pay-later plan works, according to Paja and the veterans:

Mateo DeCaza, an associate of Paja, flies to Manila and locates Filipino veterans who are becoming U.S. citizens but can’t afford to migrate. He offers each of them a $980 loan, financed by Paja, but the veterans do not actually receive the money. Each loan comprises the price of a plane ticket and related travel costs that come to about $590--and a service charge that Paja says is $315, but the veterans say is $390.

The veterans say DeCaza told them that as U.S. citizens in Los Angeles they would qualify for Supplemental Security Income benefits. Those veterans who have no money for food when they arrive say they are loaned an additional $100 each to last the month or so until they receive SSI benefits. Paja collects one-fourth of each veteran’s monthly SSI benefits to pay off the loans. The annual interest rate of 24% he charges is significantly higher than that offered by credit-card companies, but Paja says it is lower than that charged in the Philippines. Paja also charges each veteran $110 per month rent to share the rundown apartments.

As many as six men are housed in a one-bedroom unit. The veterans say that Paja keeps their passports or citizenship papers as security for the loans and that they are required to remain his tenants until the loans are paid off.

“You cannot leave the place until you have paid your loan,” said Ismael Cipriano, a 67-year-old veteran.

Paja, 60, a native of the Philippines, denies that the veterans are required to stay in his apartments until the loans are paid off. He says that he keeps the veterans’ passports and naturalization papers only so the documents won’t be lost.

As for the service charges paid by the veterans, says Paja, that money goes to DeCaza, who is in the Philippines and could not be reached for comment. Paja does acknowledge charging the veterans $20 each for his assistance, but says that when the first group of seven veterans arrived last year, he charged nothing.

DeCaza is arranging for 10 more veterans to come to Los Angeles early this year, says Paja, and they too are expected to stay in his apartments.

After receiving a citizen’s complaint, Los Angeles County Adult Protective Services social workers notified county health officials of the veterans’ living conditions in October. Heating systems were subsequently repaired or activated in the apartments and some of the hot-water problems were corrected, according to Norma Nordstrom, administrator of field operations for Adult Protective Services. Protective Services officials are continuing to look into the matter.

Paja is no stranger to controversy.

In 1985, an 11-year-old girl fell through a second-floor porch railing in an apartment building he owned at the time. She suffered a fractured skull and brain damage. Sandor Fuchs, attorney for the child’s family, said the building was in disrepair and the rotten railing gave way when the girl leaned on it.

Paja denied that the railing was rotten, saying the girl rode a bicycle out the back door and through the barrier. The girl’s family received a $300,000 settlement from Paja’s insurer.

In another court case concluded earlier this year, Paja was accused of using a forged power of attorney to evict an elderly woman from her home.

Superior Court Judge Florence Pickard ruled that the house was improperly taken from the woman and that Paja’s “finagling . . . bordered on conspiracy to deprive the plaintiff of the subject property. . . .”

Paja said he was unaware that the power of attorney was forged. He said he was merely collecting on a legitimate debt.

Some of the veterans praise Paja for helping them come to Los Angeles.

Take 72-year-old Catalino Castillo, who survived what he calls “one day in hell” battling Japanese soldiers in Bataan before he was captured.

Castillo lives along with four other veterans in one of Paja’s apartments. The one-bedroom unit has no hot water and no refrigerator. Roaches swarm over perishable food that the veterans keep on an ironing board in the kitchen.

Asked why he came to the United States, Castillo says in a simple phrase typical of the veterans: “I’m an American citizen.”

And he is grateful to Paja that he is here.

“Without the owner of this house,” he said, “I would not be able to come.”