Editorials
Monday, August 4, 1997WHEN Japan attacked the Philippines in 1941, Americans and Filipinos fought side by side at Bataan and Corregidor. In 1944 Filipino guerrillas assisted American forces in the liberation from Japanese occupation. Filipino war veterans
deserve GI benefitsIn 1946 the Philippines received its independence from the United States. Congress decided that benefits for the veterans of the then-Philippine Commonwealth army should be the responsibility of the new republic although they had fought under American command. This decision was embodied in a law called the Recision Act.
However, the new government had no money for that purpose and the veterans were left to fend for themselves. For decades since then the Filipino veterans have lobbied in vain for U.S. benefits. One of their main supporters in Congress has been Hawaii's Daniel Inouye, himself a distinguished veteran.
A breakthrough was achieved in 1990 with the passage of a law awarding citizenship to Filipinos who had fought on the side of the United States in World War II. The legislation brought an estimated 3,000 of the aging veterans to Hawaii and thousands more to mainland states.
But there was nothing in the legislation about veterans benefits. The new citizens were eligible only for welfare payments on the same basis as nonveterans.
They want more -- full benefits under U.S. veterans programs. Recently some of them have been demonstrating -- going on hunger strikes, chaining themselves to the White House fence and staging fake deaths.
Hawaii's Senators Akaka and Inouye have introduced a bill that would extend GI benefits to the Filipinos. But Inouye concedes that budgetary concerns dim prospects for passage. The measure is estimated to cost $700 million a year.
The passage of half a century has thinned the ranks of the Filipino veterans -- it's estimated there are 70,000 survivors -- but at last their cause is gaining attention in Washington. It still isn't too late to give them the benefits they earned on the battlefield.
WASHINGTON, D.C., which has aspired to statehood, can't govern itself effectively as a city. Its public schools are usually rated the worst in the country. The crime problem has become so bad that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg couldn't walk from the Kennedy Center to her apartment at the Watergate complex next door without having her purse snatched. D.C. takeover
Mayor Marion Barry and his pals have made such a mess of things that the federal government had to step in. Washington is, after all, the nation's capital. Mismanagement of the city reflects badly on all Americans. "Recolonization" is an ugly term but if that is what it takes to set things right so be it.
THE introduction of high-tech, hideously expensive medical procedures such as heart transplants and brain scans can obscure the fact that some health problems can be solved with relatively simple and inexpensive means. This is true of a set of nutritional problems affecting more than 1 billion people. The condition, called mild micronutrient malnutrition, mainly consists of a lack of sufficient iodine, iron and vitamin A. These deficiencies can result in mental retardation, night blindness and lower productivity. Fortifying food
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
