Historical Perspective

The origins of the Commonwealth Army of the Philippines are in the early 1900s when the United States assumed formal sovereignty over the Philippines.  At that time, the United States was preparing for the Philippines to become a sovereign nation.  Public Law 73-127, enacted in 1934, required the Commonwealth Army to respond to the call of the President of the United States under certain conditions.  In fact, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the Commonwealth Army to service on July 26, 1941.  Public Law 79-190, enacted in October 1945, authorized recruiting 50,000 "new" Philippine Scouts in anticipation of needing local occupational forces.

Thereafter, approximately 250,000 Filipino men joined the U.S. Armed Forces in the months before and the days just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  For the next several years, they would share the fate of their American counterparts on the battlefield, in prisoner of war camps, and throughout the countryside as part of the guerrilla resistance.  Accordingly, Washington promised them the same health and pension benefits as their American brothers.  Even after the war, in October of 1945, Gen. Omar Bradley, then Administrator of the Veterans Administration, reaffirmed that they were to be treated like any other American veterans.

But on February 18, 1946, the Congress passed and President Truman signed Public Law 70-301, known as the Rescission Act of 1946.  It said that the service of Filipinos "shall not be deemed to be or to have been service in the military or national forces of the United States or any component thereof or any law of the United States conferring rights, privileges or benefits."

Sixty-one years later strides have been made to reverse this decision.  However, the veteran benefits given to US soldiers fighting and dying side by side the Filipinos are still disparate.  Based on recent estimates of the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs (20,000) and the Philippine Government (18,155), there are an estimated 6,000 Filipino WWII veterans living in the United States and 12,000 in the Philippines in the year 2007.  That number is rapidly falling as even the youngest of them are approaching eighty.

Senator Daniel K. Akaka of Hawaii and Representative Robert Filner of California are sponsors of bills that will provide full benefits to the surviving veterans during this current session of Congress.