WASHINGTON — Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi expressed the Administration’s support for improved benefits to Filipino veterans and their survivors in a June 13 hearing before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health. Legislation is pending in both the House and the Senate to expand benefit eligibility for VA health care, compensation and burial benefits.
“The world is indebted to Filipino veterans for their contribution to the Allied victory in World War II,” said Principi. “It was President Bush’s leadership that made VA’s support for these measures possible. The President promised Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last fall a review of services and benefits the United States provides for Filipino veterans, and that review has yielded results.”
Principi expressed support for payment of the full service-connected disability compensation rates to former New Philippine Scouts and full compensation rates to surviving spouses of all recognized Filipino veteran groups living in this country. They must be either U.S. citizens or aliens admitted for permanent residence. Currently, the New Philippine Scouts and the survivors receive half of the rate of compensation that American veterans and their survivors receive. The Scouts enlisted or reenlisted in Filipino-manned units of the U.S. Army on or after Oct. 6, 1945.
The Administration also supports offering health care on the same basis as for U.S. veterans to New Philippine Scouts, veterans of the Commonwealth Army of the Philippines and recognized guerrilla forces who live in the U.S. legally. Currently, New Philippine Scouts are eligible for care in the U.S. on a discretionary basis, if VA resources permit, and only for treatment of service-connected disabilities. The other Filipino veterans groups are eligible for the same care as U.S. veterans receive only if they have service-connected disabilities.
Several burial benefits would be extended to Filipino veterans beyond those now eligible for them. New Philippine Scouts and veterans without service-connected disability ratings residing legally in the U.S. would qualify for burial allowances and plot allowances at the same dollar level as other veterans, burial flags, burial in national cemeteries and provision of government headstones or grave markers.
Principi said he plans to provide assistance of $500,000 a year to furnish equipment, and to install and maintain it, at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Manila, operated by the Philippine government. The funding would be provided under authority the U.S. government has to assist the Philippines in fulfilling its responsibility to provide medical care for Filipino vets who fought with U.S. forces.
The VA secretary noted that the increased payments of compensation and VA’s support for expanding health care eligibility would require congressional approval and the implementation cost would have to remain within spending levels of the Administration’s 2003 budget.
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