Alaska Senator Ted Stevens championed the measure, along with Senators Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka of Hawaii. In a statement read into the Senate record, Stevens pointed out that Filipinos who served the United States during the Second World War were originally given benefits. But in 1946 Congress stripped them from those who stayed in the Philippines.

(Filipino Vets 1                       :45s                 “…coastline of the United States.”)

The Embassy of the Philippines says there were 470-thousand Filipino World War II veterans after the war.  Today only about 18-thousand of them survive. Stevens says he and Senator Inouye visited the some of them in the Philippines earlier this year.

(Filipino Vets 2                       :11s                 “…are our age or older.”)

And he defended the cost of providing benefits to them.

(Filipino Vets 3                       :25s                 “…they leave this planet.”)

The bill now moves to the US House for its consideration.

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