Los Angeles, CA - On Veterans Day, Youth Groups, Students, Widows, and Veterans all marched shoulder-to-shoulder from Historic Filipinotown to the Federal Building to demand justice, peace, and equality.
Some of the the organizations that were represented include; Alyansa ng mga Kababayan of UC Irvine, Samahang Pilipino at UCLA, CSU Fullerton PASA, Cal Poly BARKADA, Andres Bonifacio Samahan from San Diego, KP from UCSD, Katipunan from UC Riverside, Long Beach PAC, Pierce College Kapuso, Kappa Psi Epsilon, ANSWER-LA, Pro People Youth KMB, Chi Rho, XPO, TBD,FASA from CSUN, BANTAY PILIPINAS-USA, EPCC, AJLPP, and EFJPP, among others.
The event, which was organized by Justice for Filipino American Veterans (JFAV), kicked off at the SIPA headquarters in Historic Filipinotown with a pre-rally program, and eventually wound its way to the Los Angeles Federal Building to demand recognition and benefits for the 60,000 remaining living WWII veterans and as well as the widows of those that had since passed away.
This protest was in response to the Department of Veterans Affair(DVA) having denied more than 20,000 veterans of their lump sum claims after President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on February 17, 2009, which authorized the release of a one-time, lump-sum payment to eligible Pilipino World War II veterans in 2009.
Over 46,000 veterans filed their claims in the Philippines and the United States. However, the DVA only granted less than 11,000 claims and flatly denied more than 20,000 others “because they are not on the so-called Missouri List”
JFAV, the Association of Widows, Relatives and Advocates for Equality (AWARE) and the Migrant Heritage Commission helped the veterans and widows and their heirs to file a civil suit against the DVA last October 8, 2010 in San Francisco.
