It''s much more than "bleak and shameful"

Thus spoke US Senator Daniel Inouye, Democrat from Hawaii and a Congressional Medal of Honor awardee for bravery after losing one arm in World War II in the Italian warfront, describing the ill-treatment and injustice to Filipino veterans by the US Congress, no less.

A Nisei himself - with Japanese descent - but an American citizen when the outbreak of WW II had erupted he had suffered injustice and discrimination by the US government, but somehow, through grit and guts, overcame the racial prejudice and bigotry against the Niseis then.

For more than a decade now, Inouye has been a lonely voice in the US Senate taking the cudgels for Filipino veterans who fought with and for the Americans in the war against the Japs in the epic battle of Bataan and elsewhere. Inouye has fought for recognition of USAFFE veterans as equal to the US veterans, entitled to all the benefits as such.

But until now, the US Congress has turned deaf ears with callousness. And to think that Uncle Sam''s leaders always proclaim themselves as the epitome of fairness, justice, and righteousness. What a sad proof of the "ugly American" infamy!

Even on medical privilege for the Filipino veterans who are now a dwindling few because of old age - mostly octogenarians - only those who eked their last asset to migrate to USA are enjoying it. For those who remain here, or elsewhere outside USA, they are not recipients of medical benefits… Sad tales from Pinoys in America reveal that the octogenarian vets linger in loneliness in public plazas, and queue themselves at meal time in Salvation Army feeding centers, for one. What a pity!

For the sake of these remaining few who are literally doddering and hardly ambulant and, whose life''s leash is inevitably shortening, it''s hoped that this time, Senator Inouye''s "Filipino Veterans Equity Act of 2007" will find and strike a sympathetic chord among the incumbent US Senators; and, eventually, it will pass the House, and be approved by President Bush.

While the US Senate had the extra arrogance to take cognizance of and intervene into "extra-judicial killings" here, as recklessly attributed to the government by leftist agitators sans proof as yet, it is perforce more gallant and morally proper for that body to harken to Inouye''s just advocacy, before it''s too late.

The plight of WW II USAFFE Filipino soldiers is indeed pathetic. The low ranking veterans used to receive only a pittance and, it was only recently that the monthly pension has reached P5,000 when its purchasing value is no longer substantial. There''s that useless law entitling a veteran who reaches 70 to additional full disability benefit of P5T a month(?), but the same is without any appropriation, so said the Philippine Veterans Administration when queried about it. What a stupid, stupid legislation!

And yet, both houses of Congress insist on their pork barrel totaling in billions annually; whereas, the poor but deserving heroes of WW II have been given false hopes, sans monetary backing. Isn''t that the height of irresponsibility and unforgivable cruelty?

Frankly, the special friendship, or brother-to-brother ties, between Uncle Sam and Juan dela Cruz is, at most, a one-way pretentious claim by the latter, but merely tolerated by the former to flatter egos. But in actual diplomatic practice, the so-called special amity and legendary reciprocity, is all an empty myth. Hence, just as US Senator Inouye dubs the deaf ears of the US Congress as "bleak and shameful", what would that make of the Philippine government and its leaders for their more deafening silence and total blindness to the sordid plight of WW II Filipino veterans for the past 60 years or so?

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