US Senate panel okays $19-M for Fil-Am vets

STAR Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Some 8,000 Filipino World War II veterans living in the United States moved a step closer to achieving parity with their GI counterparts when the Senate veterans affairs committee approved two bills providing $19 million in mostly health care benefits for them.

Under one bill, the veterans — known here as Fil-Am vets — will receive health care benefits at an annual cost of $16.3 million. The other bill seeks $2.9 million a year to cover survivor spouse benefits for 438 widows and full compensation for war-related injuries or illnesses for 128 New Scouts in the United States.

About 21,000 veterans in the Philippines get nothing under both bills though some officials are hoping President George W. Bush will present the Philippine Veterans Memorial Center a $2-million "pasalubong" for medicines and equipment when he visits Manila on Oct. 18.

The measures benefiting the Fil-Am vets were folded into broader veterans health care bills passed by the Senate committee on Monday. The full Senate will vote on the measures in mid-October and passage is virtually assured.

The House of Representatives in July passed its own version of a health care bill calling for $11.5 million in annual benefits for Fil-Am vets. A conference committee will reconcile the differing Senate and House bills before it is presented to Bush for his signature before Veterans Day on Nov. 11.

"We’ve overcome a major obstacle. We’re now almost 99 percent home free," said Eric Lachica, executive director of the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans (ACFV).

He said the coalition had been pushing for health care benefits for Fil-Am vets since 1996 and this was the first time such a bill had cleared the Senate veterans affairs committee.

Lachica said if health care benefits for Fil-Am vets are signed into law as expected, the ACFV will lobby Congress next year for the passage of a measure sponsored by Hawaii Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye that seeks to provide a $100 monthly pension for the 21,000 veterans in the Philippines.