War Vets Help Win a Round for Philippines

For the World War II veterans who attended a meeting of California pension officials Monday, it wasn’t quite the Battle of the Philippines. But they were ready for a fight.

They were among more than 300 Filipino Americans who showed up to pressure directors of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System to keep the Philippines on its list of countries suitable for investment.

And at the end of a sometimes raucous 3 1/2-hour meeting, the Philippine government got at least a temporary reprieve.

The crowd included Philippine Ambassador Albert del Rosario, who delivered an impassioned appeal to the CalPERS board. None of the vets testified, but they couldn’t be missed in their leather jackets with embroidered American flags and garrison caps studded with battle ribbons.

“These are very brave and gallant men,” said Rudy Asercion, commander of the American Legion’s Bataan Post 600 in San Francisco. “When they heard that CalPERS was going to delist the Philippines, they came out in force.”

The CalPERS board voted 12 to 0 to wait 30 days before deciding whether to sell the pension fund’s shares in Philippine companies.

The decision was a victory for former Democratic Assemblyman Rusty Areias, who was hired by Philippine officials to launch an all-out lobbying campaign.

Areias’ campaign also got a powerful boost from CalPERS board member Willie Brown, a former Assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor, and state Controller Steve Westly. The Philippines needs to be treated fairly, they insisted, eliciting applause.

“It’s a good outcome.... We did not arrive here this morning with the votes,” said Areias, who spent the weekend escorting Del Rosario on a last-minute campaign to convince board members that the Philippines would lose its standing in the international investment community if it was delisted by California.

“The evidence is clearly there” that the Philippines is eligible to continue to receive CalPERS investments, said Brown, whose hometown of San Francisco has a large, politically active Filipino American community.

Westly, who said he grew up in the Philippines, questioned whether the country had received “due process” in the screening, which was conducted by CalPERS consultant Wilshire Associates Inc. Wilshire rates the suitability of “emerging-market” nations by a variety of factors, including political stability, labor laws and financial transparency.

Westly noted that measuring political stability is difficult.

“We live in a country where the last president was impeached, and our governor was just recalled,” he said to a chorus of laughter. “These are somewhat subjective judgments.”

During the meeting, Del Rosario accused Santa Monica-based Wilshire Associates of being difficult to deal with and of ignoring key factors that would have given his country a passing grade.

“It is easier to obtain a meeting with the queen of England than it is to see Wilshire,” the white-haired, patrician ambassador declared, eliciting laughter from the crowd.

Wilshire Managing Director Roz Hewsenian, who was clearly shaken by criticism from both the ambassador and some board members, countered that “allegations that Wilshire has been uncooperative, has its own agenda or is otherwise biased are unfounded.”

The vote Monday greatly increases the chance that CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund with $164 billion in assets, eventually will decide to keep the Philippines on its roster of approved investment locations. CalPERS has $67 million invested in Philippine companies.