Igorot vets seek deeper pension probe

BAGUIO CITY--When the Philippines

started paying out war pensions to a

182-year-old war veteran, Defense

Secretary Orlando Mercado knew

something was wrong at the Philippine Veterans Administration

Office.

Mercado told reporters here that a complete list of spurious

pension beneficiaries had been discovered in a Department of

National Defense probe of the veterans pension scam.

On top of his list was the 182-year-old war veteran.

''We have been paying veterans as old as 156 years and 149

years. This is not Georgia, where 100-year-old people are known

to survive. Now I am sure corruption thrives at the PVAO,'' said

Mercado who attended a disaster management conference here

on Friday.

But Cordillera World War II veterans still expressed belief that

Mercado missed a detailed listing of fake war veterans who

managed to mislead the government.

Lawyer Concepcion Luis, president of the Sons and Daughters

of Veterans of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East

(SADV-Usaffe), said government had been issuing more

pension checks to fake war veterans than legitimate claimants.

The Cordillera veterans already issued disclaimers as early as

1997 against more than 100 fake war veterans now on the

pension roll, said Luis.

''I hope Secretary Mercado's investigation can purge that list

faster because we are losing our veterans. They are in their

mid-80s and 90s and I fear no one will be around when the

government starts correcting their mistakes,'' she said.

Lilia Lamses Baldo, 76, said the Philippine government had also

been frustrated by its documentation efforts.

Baldo, who was a guerrilla spy between 1941 and 1945, told the

Inquirer that the government failed to validate counterfeit

documents submitted by many war veterans.

''I myself started receiving my own pension only last year. They

(PVAO) take a long time to complete their list. I know some of

the people on the fake list and I can testify that they were not

even officially part of the war efforts,'' she said.

Igorot war veterans celebrated the 54th anniversary of the

liberation of Baguio City last April 27 where surviving members

of the 66th Infantry Battalion raised their complaints against the

PVAO. Vincent Cabreza, PDI Northern Luzon Bureau