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Filipino WWII Vets On The March Again

By Dave Cline

In 1941 the world was on fire. Nazi Germany had overrun most of Europe and invaded the Soviet Union. In the Far East, the Japanese Imperial Army had unleashed aggression against China, Korea, Burma and Indochina.

On July 26, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the drafting of Filipino nationals into the US Armed Forces. Four and a half months later, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and America was drawn into World War II.

At that time the Philippines were a colony of the United States that had been seized, along with Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam, from the Spanish monarchy after their defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Nationalists in those countries had fought alongside American troops to overthrow the yoke of colonialism. Cuba became independent, but Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam were annexed by the US. The independent republic of Hawaii was also annexed that year. Instead of liberation, these countries found that one colonial master had replaced another.

Filipino patriots launched an insurrection against US domination that lasted until it was crushed by American troops in 1902. The US command treated all Filipinos as the enemy, and on one island all males over eleven years of age were slaughtered.

By the 1930s, a new threat faced the peoples of Asia. Rabid Japanese militarism sought to replace Western imperialism as the dominant force in the region. The same day they attacked Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces invaded Guam and the Philippines. American and Filipino soldiers fought side by side until their defeat in 1942 at the battles of Bataan and Corregidor. Thousands of American and Filipino prisoners of war died during the infamous Bataan Death March. Those who survived were imprisoned under inhuman conditions, suffering casualties of fifty to two hundred deaths per day. Those soldiers fortunate enough to escape capture joined with civilians to wage a guerrilla war until their liberation in 1945. These guerillas foiled the Japanese plans for a quick takeover of the region and allowed the United States the needed time to prepare a counterattack. After the Philippines were retaken, they were used as a base for the final efforts to win the war against Japan.

In 1946, one year after the war ended, the Philippines became politically independent. The same year Congress passed and President Harry Truman signed a bill reneging on FDR's promise, stripping these veterans of any benefits.

On July 26, 1997, the 56th anniversary of FDR's draft order, three hundred of these veterans and their supporters demonstrated in front of the White House. Chanting "old soldiers never die" and "Clinton, give us justice," fifteen of them chained themselves to the White House fence and were arrested. Arrested with them was Rep. Bob Filmer (D-CA), who together with Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) has sponsored the Filipino Veterans Equity Act (H.R. 836). This bill would grant medical care, pensions, job and educational benefits and burial rights. Survivor benefits are excluded from the legislation. Most of these veterans are in their seventies and eighties now. There are about seventy thousand of them still alive, twenty-six thousand of which are living in the US.

At the beginning of September, two busloads of these veterans left San Francisco, heading for Washington, DC to fight for this bill. Calling their group the Equity Caravan, they have held rallies and picked up other buses in Texas, Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Bayonne, New Jersey. They are organized in local Filipino-American veterans' groups and are united nationally in the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans.

Samuel Icalinas, a Californian now, was only 14 years old when he started fighting, first as a guerrilla and later as a US Army scout. He said, "When the Japanese came over, they killed my father and mother just to get us to surrender. We kept fighting till the Americans came. Why the Americans give more equality to other GIs and not Filipinos, we don't understand. For fifty years, that's what we're fighting now."

We urge you to contact your Congressional representatives and urge them to support the Filipino Veterans Equity Act so that justice may finally be done them.

Dave Cline is a 100% disabled Vietnam vet and a former National Coordinator of VVAW.