Mr. Aquino, who addressed the elderly soldiers and their relatives gathered at the Dambana ng Kagitingan entirely in Filipino, got thunderous applause when he announced that from March 31, 599 hospitals had been accredited by Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) as regional and provincial extensions, making it easy for the veterans to access medical benefits.
“The state honors our veterans and I believe we should repay their sacrifices by caring for them,” he said.
Colonel Roberto Gacayan, 85, a war veteran from La Union province, urged Mr. Aquino and legislators not to ignore the plight of the war veterans.
“It seems that the government has been slowly forgetting what we did during the war. We hope that our benefits will be increased … We will not live long and we hope that in the remaining years of our lives, we get to feel our true worth,” Gacayan, who heads the Confederation of World War II Veterans’ Sons and Daughters Inc., said.
“If it had not been for our sacrifices, the youth will not experience the freedom they are enjoying today,” he said.
Veterans’ welfare
According to Mr. Aquino, VMMC has been subsidizing services for cataract surgery, coronary angiogram procedure and cardiac bypass operations.
The President again drew applause when he cited the direct remittance servicing system of the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO), which is done through the banks or automated teller machines. This has enabled war veterans to receive their pensions faster and in correct amounts, he said.
The veterans’ list has also been purged, enabling government to generate savings that are used to support more pensioners, he said.
Ernesto Carolina, the PVAO administrator, said the House committee on veterans affairs had approved an increase in the old-age pension from P5,000 to P10,000, with an increase of P1,000 a year for the next five years.
A bill is also pending in Congress seeking to increase the burial assistance from P10,000 to P20,000.
Carolina said the PVAO had paid P4 billion to eligible pensioners, with the funds coming from the savings made from the purging of illegal claimants.
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