Before the Philippines’ independence in 1946, its citizens were U.S. nationals, and in the lead-up to America’s entry into World War II, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt made a proclamation. He ordered “all the organized military forces” of the Philippines to serve the U.S. military.
Approximately 260,000 Filipino servicemen were mobilized — soldiers, nurses, recognized guerilla units and more. But after the war, the financial obligation of that mobilization loomed large. With the Philippines on the verge of independence, the U.S. Congress started to reconsider its commitment to Filipino veterans.
In February 1946, it issued the first of two Rescission Acts, both of which denied Filipino veterans the right to be recognized as active service members in the U.S. Armed Forces. In exchange, the U.S. offered the Philippine Army a sum of $200 million. It also paid compensation to Filipino soldiers disabled in the war and kin of those who were killed — sometimes at half the rate of their American counterparts.
Ultimately, Filipino servicemen were left stripped of their pensions, educational stipends and medical care under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Just as important was the fact that the legislation seemed to negate any sacrifices the veterans made on behalf of the U.S.
President Harry Truman issued a statement re-iterating that Filipinos had “fought, as American nationals, under the American flag, and under the direction of our military leaders.” Yet, despite asserting that the U.S. had a “moral obligation” to the veterans, he signed the Rescission Acts.
As Valiente-Neighbours learned about these events, she started reaching out to Filipino veterans, and was surprised to hear some of them insist that they were U.S. citizens, even though they had never even set foot on American soil. But as they saw it, they had sacrificed life and limb for the U.S. What could be more American?
Valiente-Neighbours, now a professor at Point Loma Nazarene University, ultimately met with 83 Filipino veterans. Many of them were heartbroken by the lack of recognition they received.
One leaned close to her tape-recorder and spoke to it as if talking to America itself. “I gave you my best years. You had my youth,” she recalls him saying. “And now, in my old age, you don’t recognize me.”