"Balitang America"-The Filipino Channel, News Report, Henni Espinosa, Posted: Jul 30, 2010

Redwood City, CA--The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill granting additional funding of $67 million for the Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Fund that pays for the lump sum claims of Filipino veterans. The law awards eligible U.S. citizen Filipino World War 2 veterans a one-time payment of $15,000. Filipino veterans who are not U.S. citizens get $9,000.
San Diego Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA), chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee confirmed this in a letter sent to the advocacy group Justice for Filipino-American Veterans (JFAV).
In a letter dated July 9, Filner said the bill providing additional funding is now pending in the U.S. Senate for action.
Art Garcia, national coordinator of JFAV said, “We welcome this news. This is another lifeline for our Filipino veterans.”
Garcia is confident that Congress will release the funds. He said, “It’s just a matter of formality with the Senate.”
Garcia said there is only $10 million left in the lump sum fund. Recent government data show that 8,000 claims are still being processed. 16,000 claims have been denied.
“They were denied because the government was running out of money. The Department of Veterans Affairs kept insisting that there were only 18,000 surviving Filipino veterans. They were caught off guard when 46,000 veterans filed their claims,” said Garcia.
Garcia believes that with enough money in the fund, the appeal of veterans whose claims were denied could still be approved.