[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 172 (Wednesday, November 7, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H13213]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      FILIPINO VETERANS EQUITY ACT

  (Mr. HONDA asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, as we approach Veterans Day, I rise to urge 
Congress to support the Filipino Veterans Equity Act. This important 
piece of legislation will restore U.S. veterans status to the surviving 
soldiers of the 250,000 Filipinos who were called into military service 
to the United States Armed Forces by President Roosevelt on July 26, 
1941.
  Of the only 22,000 surviving Filipino World War II veterans, I want 
to highlight Faustino ``Peping'' Baclig, who currently resides in Los 
Angeles, California. Peping was among the 75,000 Filipino and U.S. 
soldiers subjected to the 90-mile trek from Mariveles to Tarlac, better 
known as the Bataan Death March. He survived the atrocities of Japanese 
occupation and fought side by side with the Americans, only to have his 
service as a U.S. national and a veteran denied by the 1946 Rescission 
Act.
  We now have a unique moment to undo the injustice of that act and 
give honor and respect to this brave group of veterans. As Peping tells 
us, though, ``They pay us to die, but they cannot pay us to live.'' For 
these men, the Filipino Veterans Equity Act will fulfill a promise we 
denied them for over 60 years, recognition of a grateful Nation that 
their service to our country is just as equal as the soldiers with whom 
they stood shoulder-to-shoulder on field of battle.

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