A Debt Unpaid : In...

Peping Baclig will never forget the Bataan Death March. It remains a vision as clear and cruel as the Philippine sun he and 67,000 other defeated American and Filipino troops plodded beneath in April of 1942, during the early days of World War II.

“Those who couldn’t make it, they were just slaughtered,” said Baclig, now a gentle, chubby-faced senior of 73. “Those who attempted to get water were killed. I had to fill my canteen with water from a canal where there was a floating corpse, covered with plenty of worms. But I had to take it, because I needed the water. That’s how I quenched my thirst.”

Baclig was a 20-year-old infantryman when Allied forces, almost 90% Filipino, surrendered at the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula, where they made their last stand against invading Japanese troops. Their captors bullied them into a forced march along the mountainous peninsula to a prisoner of war camp 90 miles away. Allowed neither food nor water, Baclig remembers how one by one, the soldiers weakened and fell in the broiling heat.

As they collapsed, they were bayoneted or shot to death on the spot.

In the three days of the Bataan Death March, 7,000 to 10,000 prisoners died.

About 600 were Americans. There was never an accurate count taken of the Filipinos.

Filipino veterans are still struggling to be counted, 50 years after the end of the war. In 1946, Congress reneged on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wartime promise of U.S. citizenship and full veterans benefits to the more than 100,000 Filipino soldiers who fought with U.S. troops, declaring their service had not been “active.”.

When Congress finally granted the veterans citizenship rights in 1990, more than 20,000 elderly Filipino men left their country for the United States. Half of them settled in the Los Angeles region, many in the Temple-Beaudry area, pursuing dreams of a better life for themselves and their families as new Americans.

But for many of the veterans, most of them in their 70s or beyond, these dreams have yet to come true. Poor, alone and too old to find work, they huddle together in cramped, cheap apartments, surviving on meager Social Security checks while they save every penny in the hopes that they can one day be joined by their wives and children.

The second part of the promise remains unfulfilled: Filipino veterans have none of the benefits granted to regular American war veterans under the GI Bill, including non-service-related disability pensions, widows’ pensions, and medical and burial benefits.

The United States Armed Forces of the Far East were created by Roosevelt in July of 1941. The Army of the Philippine Commonwealth--then an American colony--was inducted into the U.S. forces to defend against Japanese invaders. Their presence was crucial to the war effort in the Pacific, since most American troops were reserved for service on the European front.

More than 80% of the U.S. forces who held off the Japanese, from December, 1941, until the fall of Bataan and the island fortress of Corregidor the next spring, were natives of the Philippines.

After the surrender at Bataan, an estimated 500,000 Filipinos--some soldiers, others volunteers--waged a U.S.-backed guerrilla war against Japanese occupation forces. No one knows for certain how many Filipinos died, but by the end of the war, the country’s population had dropped by close to 1 million.

“There were 18 million people when I got there in June of 1941,” said retired Col. Edwin Ramsey, 78, an American who once commanded 40,000 Filipino guerrillas.

“After the war, there were only 17 million left,” he said. “Had they cooperated with the Japanese, they would have had an awful lot fewer casualties. We promised them something, and then we denied it. I think this is one of the saddest chapters in American history.”

Recently proposed federal legislation seeks to repair the damage. The “Filipino Veterans’ Equity Act of 1995,” introduced in March by Rep. Bob Filner (D-Chula Vista) and Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-New York), is the latest congressional effort to recognize the veterans’ wartime service by delivering their long-denied rights under the GI Bill.

“What is important here is the recognition by the United States government of our service in the military,” said Franco Arcebal, 71, vice commander of United Filipino American World War II Veterans Inc., the largest Filipino veterans group in the Los Angeles area.

Arcebal and the group’s 400-plus members, including Baclig, have been trying to establish local awareness and support for the bipartisan House of Representatives bill, as well as for a similar Senate bill introduced by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). Although several equity bills have been introduced in the past, they have never been able to gather enough sponsorship.

Filner is optimistic about the House bill, which he says has more than 40 sponsors so far.

“If we are able to get 100 sponsors, we will be taken very seriously,” Filner said in a phone interview from Washington. “A great injustice was done [to the Filipino veterans] after World War II, and it’s amazing that no attempt has been made in 50 years to even apologize for it.”

A potential snag for the bill is its price tag--the Congressional Budget Office estimates it would cost $1 billion annually to grant benefits to almost 100,000 Filipino veterans still believed to be alive here and in the Philippines.

The estimate accounts for the fact that, as of 1990, old age no longer qualifies as a non-service related disability. Able-bodied veterans who have turned 65 since 1990 still get free medical care, but are no longer eligible for military pensions.

Ironically, it is this defunct old-age pension that unscrupulous “recruiters” and travel agents in the Philippines have used in recent years to turn naive, elderly veterans into profitable human cargo.

Many of the Filipino veteran leaders, like Baclig and Arcebal, are middle-class men who arrived before 1990, sponsored by sons and daughters working as professionals here who could petition for them and house them once they came.

But a majority of recent arrivals come from humbler backgrounds, and are easily lured by con artists who spin tales of pensions and benefits they will receive once they arrive. The men are often overcharged for air fare, and sometimes charged hundreds of dollars for “services” they never receive.

Some travel on credit from these recruiters; others sell their property or borrow money from friends. Rumors of these benefits are so widespread--and the will to believe them so strong--that even veterans who are not recruited often leave the Philippines believing they will be eligible.

When they arrive, they discover that the only benefits they are entitled to are those allotted to all senior American citizens--Social Security income and Medicare.

Those who have no relatives to turn to often find themselves sharing decrepit apartments with several others, while some with less luck wind up at homeless shelters. Confused and disillusioned, they wonder what became of the benefits they were so certain of.

“They said we were going to have benefits when we arrived,” said Federico Juntalos, 75, a former bus driver who came five months ago using credit from a Los Angeles-based Filipino American attorney who recruited him in the Philippines. “They said it was benefits for veterans, but we did not know it was SSI. They did not explain. I was fully convinced that once I came here, I could get my benefits. Now, I feel discouraged.”

Although a one-way airplane ticket from Manila to Los Angeles costs a little over $600, Juntalos was asked to pay $1,000 in installments once he began receiving his Social Security money. He was told the extra $400 was for the so-called services of the recruiter who convinced him to come to Los Angeles.

Philippine officials say these recruiters are difficult to regulate because they operate underground, attracting clients by word of mouth. Public service announcements to deter eager veterans from enlisting their aid have shown only limited success.

Juntalos refuses to believe he was taken advantage of. Instead, he is grateful.

“I would not have been in Los Angeles if not for that person,” he said with conviction, as he sat on a worn chair in the dingy two-bedroom apartment he shares with three other veterans and two of their wives. “He is the one who supported me, my plane ticket here. He is a good fellow, an attorney.”

Juntalos, who left his wife and three grown children behind in the Philippines, pays $125 a month for a 9-by-12 room he shares with another single veteran. There is barely enough space for two mattresses, a small chest of drawers and a rosary-draped statue of a Madonna and child, the only thing he brought with him from home.

He left his seven wartime medals--including a Purple Heart--adorning the walls of the small home he shared with his family in Manila.

Downstairs, one of Juntalos’ roommates, Teodoro Laher, 84, shares a curtained-off area next to the kitchen with his wife, Fortunata, 66.

“I am disgusted with our situation here,” said Laher, a frail man who suffers from several disabilities, including lung and vision problems. He had no medical benefits as a veteran in the Philippines, so he came to the United States seeking the care he thought he was entitled to. Although he now has access to Medicare, he also has to content himself with life behind a ragged curtain.

“Can you help me in pursuing my claim as a disabled veteran?” he asked helplessly. “I am disabled. I thought we were supposed to reap the benefits that are due to veterans here.”

So far, Juntalos has not let his environment or his disappointment over elusive benefits bring him down. He misses his family, but the bravery that earned him his medals remains intact: He plans to stay in the country and save enough money to bring them here.

Filipino veterans are allowed to bring their wives and children under 21, provided they can prove a means of support. But under current immigration quotas, adult children over 21 must wait an average of 10 years before their visas are approved.

This could change under a bill proposed by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), which would grant special immigrant status to children and grandchildren of Filipino World War II veterans and speed up the visa process for them.

Under present rules, if a veteran dies while sponsoring his family, the petition is rendered void. The family member being sponsored could appeal on humanitarian grounds, but INS officials say this is normally done only if the deceased petitioner was financially stable enough to justify the applicant’s naturalization.

In the case of penniless Filipino veterans, this means that years of waiting in exile could end in vain.

But 69-year-old Domingo Baliwas doesn’t plan to wait--he has had enough of his new life in the promised land and hopes to go home in July.

The retired salesman and father of 10 arrived in Los Angeles in September, finding part-time work for $4.25 an hour as a parking lot attendant to help pay for a $500-a-month studio apartment he shares with four other veterans. He came with high hopes of saving money to bring some of his children. Now he is saving for a plane ticket home.

“I had planned to bring them before, but not now,” said Baliwas, a former guerrilla who later served in a U.S. Army bomb disposal unit. “I cannot adjust. Life is very hard here. My family is far away, and I am very lonely.”

Baliwas’ tiny apartment is in an aging stucco building around the corner from Juntalos’ home. Most of the living space is taken up by small twin beds, purchased by the men at thrift shops, where they also buy much of their clothing and household items.

Almost every molding and door jamb holds shirts and pants on hangers, and suitcases dot the room as though its occupants are about to leave.

“In case of emergency, we are ready to move out!” joked roommate Penn Almeda, 68, skinny arms protruding from his undershirt as he propped himself up on his bed against an industrial-size box of laundry detergent.

The five men live as a family, sharing cooking and housekeeping duties. They ride the bus to church together Sunday mornings, and at night they joke over card games and TV. Two of the elder roommates--Leonardo Espinoza, 77, and Pedro Juguilon, 72--embark on a three-hour bus ride once a week to Hermosa Beach, where they fish off the pier. They bring home their catch in buckets and cook it for the others.

Almeda, a guerrilla during the war, is the youngest and most energetic of the bunch. He is attending job training and plans to stay. He has already paid off the friends he borrowed money from for his journey, and is saving to bring his wife.

But Espinoza, a widower with one married daughter back home, is uncertain about his future here.

“I have a disability, but [my claim] was denied,” said the ex-guerrilla wearily as he assembled fishing lures at the kitchen table, scars from Japanese shrapnel still visible on one of his arms.

Both of Espinoza’s legs were broken, and now his old injuries limit his ability to get around.

“If your body is OK, then you can go find a job,” he said. “But if it is old, then no. I am already old, and I am lonely here.”

Neighbor Antonio Tengo, 68, has also had enough. A retired teacher, he spent almost his entire retirement nest egg to come here with his wife three years ago. They successfully managed to sponsor their youngest son, who was 20 at the time and has since joined the U.S. Navy.

But Tengo has found only part-time work, and the couple lives in poverty upstairs from the other veterans.

“This is good for those who have relatives here,” said Tengo, who served with occupation forces in Okinawa. “But my son is in the Navy, so we can’t expect to live with him. Now we are just trying to save enough to go back home.”

Disappointment has sapped the interest of veterans’ groups to maintain their access to U.S. citizenship. A two-year period allowing them to apply for citizenship after 1990 was extended through last February.

But “there has not been any further pressure from the vets to extend it, because they are not interested any more,” said Tirso Baldemor, 71, a Filipino veteran and member of the Los Angeles County Veterans’ Advisory Commission. “Those who came here found out there are no benefits for them. They can apply for SSI, but you don’t have to be a veteran to get SSI. They just want the recognition.”

After hearing arguments from several Los Angeles-area veterans’ rights groups, the commission recently voted to support the proposed equity bills. They will pass their resolution on to the County Board of Supervisors for approval before it is sent to Congress.

A similar resolution of support sponsored by state Sen. Hilda Solis (D-El Monte) was recently approved in committee, and should soon be up for a vote.

As they watch the political stage being set for what they hope will be their last battle, the old soldiers who remain are determined to win their rightful place in history.

“We fought for the American flag,” Baclig said, emotion seeping into his soft voice.

“We sang the American anthem in the hills. We raised the Stars and Stripes in our camps. If our service was not active service, then what kind of service was it? It’s a matter of principle.”