|
 agdaleno Sanchez
Dueñas was born 90 years ago in what was then the Commonwealth of the
Philippines. He died on the 27th of last month (February), 2005 in a California
convalescent home.
Magdaleno was born in 1914 and grew up in a
convent because his family was destitute, and could not afford to raise him
themselves. He managed to complete his elementary education and found work as
an errand boy and later as a stevedore working the the busy Philippine
ports.
The life of this diminutive yet resourceful man
could likely have been uneventful had Magdaleno Dueñas not answered the
call of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt for Filipinos to take up arms and join in the fight against the
Japanese. In 1941 Magdaleno Dueñas packed
his bags and joined the 101st Infantry. With the fall of the country to the
Japanese, he fled to the mountains and together with other Filipinos and
Americans formed guerrilla units and continued to battle the Japanese.
Magdaleno was at one point captured by the
enemy
yet never gave away any information regarding his fellow guerrillas. He even managed to
escape from his captors that very same night. Then in April 1943, he was part of
the team that freed 10 American hostages from a POW camp in Davao. His guerrilla
unit hid the Americans until they were rescued by an American submarine and
spirited off to safety.
In 1991 while still living in the Philippines,
Magdaleno met a man who ran a relocation agency that allegedly helped Filipino
veterans relocate to the United States. He signed on with this outfit only to
find himself a virtual prisoner upon arriving in the U.S. He, and a dozen other aging
veterans were crammed into a dilapidated house in Richmond owned by the agency.
They were forced to live in crowded and unsanitary conditions and often times
even fed dog food, while all their Social Security checks were collected and cashed against their
will. The scam was eventually exposed by a group of diligent Filipino American
activists and the perpetrators were prosecuted.
Until his death, Magdaleno Dueñas worked to
restore the rights and benefits promised them by President Roosevelt in
1941--American citizenship and full veterans' benefits. A promise that was
reneged on after Roosevelt's death by the U.S. Congress in 1946 when it reversed
that wartime pledge made to Filipinos.
While last year's Filipino WWII Veterans Equity Act (HR
677) almost made it through the Congress, there is serious doubt that any
similar bill would ever make it through this conservative-dominated
congress.
On her website, Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, ends her
tribute to Magdaleno Duenas with: "We will never forget the sacrifices Mr.
Duenas and other Filipino veterans made for our freedom. We must dedicate
ourselves as a nation to ensure that America fulfills its moral obligation to
those who pay the high price for our freedom."
But at this late stage; with Filipino veterans
in their 80's and 90's any future bill--if one ever makes it through the
U.S. Congress--would be largely symbolic.
Sadly, our Filipino World War II veterans have
been victimized by all sides in this issue. The Philippine Government is, for the
most part impotent, unable to help even if it wanted to because of financial
constraints as well as bureaucratic ineptness. The American Government on the
other hand continues to watch the clock and stall for time, hoping to avoid
doing what it had once promised to do. But even more egregious are the actions of those Filipinos who prey on these old and
vulnerable veterans to rob them of what little they have in life.
Ref: San Francisco
Chronicle, Article by Vanessa Hua, March 2. 2005, pg. A21.
|
