Ep.15: Celestino Almeda, Filipino WW2 Vet still fighting for Equity; Martial Law?; Theo Gonzalves, AAAS president-elect

Show log  Emil Amok’s Takeout Ep. 15

:00  Emil’s opening rap

1:46 San Diego Fringe Festival and SF Marsh shows

2:30 Coming up intros of top stories

5:05 What made me go amok this week

6:25 Martial Law in the Philippines? Oh, just “Partial Martial”?

18:12 Intro Celestino Almeda, the 100-year old  Filipino WW2 Vet still

Fighting for his equity pay

24:12 Interview with Almeda

42:28 Intro and interview with Association of Asian American Studies President-elect Theo Gonzalves,

University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

1:30:00 MY NBA FINALS PICK

----

Emil Guillermo: Emil Amok's Takeout Podcast - No rest on Memorial Day for a WWII Filipino Vet; and a conversation with AAAS President-elect Theo Gonzalves on APAHM
May 26, 2017 7:36 PM

Memorial Day always winds up the annual observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

And what better way to remember the one story (along with the Japanese American Internment) that lingers as the moral compass of the community.

For that reason, this Memorial Day will be a special one for Filipino WWII Veteran Celestino Almeda.

Despite many vets seeing an equity pay windfall in 2009, a handful like Almeda are still in appeals.

His fight for justice with the U.S. government has been the bureaucratic version of the Bataan Death March.


hat's no disrespect to the survivors of that historic event 75 years ago.

Almeda certainly will remember deceased friends like retired U.S. Air Force Major Jesse Baltazar, a former POW who survived the Bataan Death March in 1942, and died just last year at age 96.  

Baltazar often accompanied Almeda, fighting side by side in the latter's bureaucratic battle with the VA over equity pay.


Almeda was a young soldier in the Philippine Army reserve, when he answered the call of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect the Philippines with the U.S. Armed Forces of the Far East. The added lure was full benefits as a soldier, including U.S. citizenship.


As you'll hear in my interview with him on Emil Amok's Takeout, Almeda, the reservist, was made active for a year. 

He was then made inactive when Gen. MacArthur retreated to Australia as the Japanese took over Manila.

Almeda has official Philippine Army documents signed by U.S. officers to document all that. What he doesn't have is the record that he served in the guerrilla forces, which Almeda says were only verbal orders.

Once the war was over, he was made active again and served side-by-side Americans.

There would be no problem until President Truman signed the Rescission Act of 1946. which stripped the Filipino veterans of any right to the benefits that had been promised for their service.

Ever since then--for more than 70 years--Filipinos like Almeda have been fighting piecemeal for a restoral of all the benefits due them.    Almeda's service has been good enough to help get him U.S. citizenship in 1990. He's even been given a VA card for medical benefits. 

But it wasn't until President Obama in 2009 finally came through with a lump sum payment of $15,000 to Filipino veterans living in the U.S., and $9,000 for those still in the Philippines, that Almeda found himself in the bureaucratic battle of his life.

The VA has approved more than nearly 19,000 cases, according to its website. The payout has been more than $220 million.

But it's also rejected close to 24,000 cases. 

There's about $56 million left in the pot.

But that doesn't mean the VA is willingly giving it out, at least not to Almeda.

The VA wouldn't honor his Philippine Army documents, though he has kept the originals in pristine condition. He's still currently in appeal, but in the meantime, he's taken to public protests like one last year when Robert McDonald, the VA Secretary under Obama appeared in public. In the Q&A part of the program, Almeda tried to appeal to McDonald but had his mic turned off.

MacDonald's reaction got a stern rebuke from retired General Antonio Taguba, the general who led the investigation into Abu Ghraib. 

Taguba additionally pointed out that updates to the law--PL 111-5, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation)--directed the Secretary of VA to consider all forms of evidence of service and not just those originally considered. 

"This amendment has not been fully executed by the VA," Taguba complained to Mc Donald. Now a year later, McDonald's out, a new VA head is in, and Almeda is still fighting for justice, seemingly locked in the Bataan Death March of appeals, hoping to get approved for his lump sum before he turns 100.

It's Memorial Day, but his taste for justice has not died.

Listen to him tell his story on Emil Amok's Takeout. Days before his 100th birthday, Almeda's still got a lot of fight left.   AAAS President-elect Theo Gonzalves on the relevance of Asian American Studies today On my recent trip to Washington, DC, I was able to talk to an old friend, Theo Gonzalves of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and the president-elect of the Association for Asian American Studies.

What are they doing? How has Asian American Studies stayed relevant? How valuable is the AAS degree?

Use the fast forward and listen to Gonzalves, where he thinks Asian American Studies is going, and the importance of APAHM.

 

And if you want to read my Emil Amok column on Martial Law

https://usa.inquirer.net/4026/martial-law-not-needed-can-stop-dutertes-destiny

 

Contact Emil at http://www.aaldef.org/blog, the site of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

 If you like what you see, consider clicking the "DONATE" button.  AALDEF is a 501 C3 and your contribution is tax-deductible.

 Give us your feedback there, or at www.amok.com

Leave a voice message on Speakpipe.  We might use it in a future show.

Consider subscribing for free on iTunes, where you can rate and review.

You'll also find us on YouTube, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.

 

  

BIO

Emil Guillermo wrote for almost 15 years his "Amok" column for AsianWeek, which was the largest English language Asian American newsweekly in the nation. "Amok" was considered the most widely-read column on Asian American issues in the U.S.

His thoughtful and provocative social commentaries have appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, San Francisco Examiner, USA Today, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and in syndication throughout the country.  His columns are seen in Asia and around the world, on Inquirer.net. 

His early columns are compiled in a book "Amok: Essays from an Asian American Perspective," which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 2000.

Guillermo's journalistic career began in television and radio broadcasting. At National Public Radio, he was the first Asian American male to anchor a regularly scheduled national news broadcast when he hosted "All Things Considered" from 1989-1991. During his watch, major news broke, including the violence in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of dictatorships in Romania and Panama. From Washington, Guillermo hosted the shows that broke the news. 

As a television journalist, his award-winning reports and commentaries have appeared on NBC, CNN, and PBS. He was a reporter in San Francisco, Dallas, and Washington, D.C.

After NPR, Guillermo became a press secretary and speechwriter for then Congressman Norman Mineta, the former cabinet member in the Bush and Clinton Administrations. 

After his Hill experience, Guillermo returned to the media, hosting his own talk show in Washington, D.C. on WRC Radio. He returned to California where he hosted talk shows in San Francisco at KSFO/KGO, and in Sacramento at KSTE/KFBK.

Guillermo's columns in the ethnic press inspired a roundtable discussion program that he created, hosted, executive produced, resulting in more than 100 original half-hour programs. "NCM-TV: New California Media" was seen on PBS stations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and throughout the state on cable.

Guillermo also spent time as a newspaper reporter covering the poor and the minority communities of California's Central Valley. His writing and reporting on California's sterilization program on the poor and minorities won him statewide and national journalism awards.

In 2015, Guillermo received the prestigious Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights and Social Justice from the Asian American Journalists Association. The award, named after the late Korean American physician from Texas, recognizes excellence in the coverage of civil rights and social justice issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.

Guillermo, a native San Franciscan, went to Lowell High School, and graduated from Harvard College, where he was named Ivy Orator as the class humorist.

Thanks for listening to Emil Amok's Takeout!

http://www.twitter.com/emilamok

http://www.aaldef.org/blog