May 27, 2019
My father Jose R. Macario (Dec. 26, 1919 – Oct. 31, 1999) served with the Insular U.S. Navy in WWII. After the war, on Feb. 18, 1946, the 79th US Congress passed the Rescission Act of 1946 that considered his and 260,000 other Filipinos’ service during WWII as “not active service”.
The Rescission Act of 1946 – 38 U.S. Code § 107 – Certain service deemed not to be active service passed on Feb. 18, 1946.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title38/html/USCODE-2011-title38-partI-chap1-sec107.htm
Two days later, Pres. Truman issued 38 – Statement by the President Concerning Provisions in Bill Affecting Philippine Army Veterans. – February 20, 1946, saying among others that:
“Philippine Army veterans are *nationals of the United States* and will continue in that status until July 4, 1946.
They fought, as *American nationals*, under the American flag, and under the direction of our military leaders. (How the hey did our parents and grandparents lose our U.S. Nationality? There was no referendum asking the Filipino people if we wanted to secede from the U.S.)
Their officers were commissioned by us. Their official organization, the Army of the Philippine Commonwealth, was taken into the Armed forces of the United States by executive order of the President of the United States on July 26, 1941.
That order has never been revoked or amended.”
Signed Pres. Harry S. Truman 33rd U.S. President
This statement was my inspiration for the MEG Macario Foundation’s 2018 Christmas Card.
Links: https://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=1480&st=&st1=
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-president-concerning-provisions-bill-affecting-philippine-army-veterans
Nonetheless on July 4, 1946 the Philippines was granted independence under the 1946 Treaty of Manila.
On Jan. 28, 1948, quisling US Army Brig. Gen. Manuel Roxas turned president of the new republic issued Proclamation 51 granting general amnesty to 5,553 suspected collaborators. But as fate would have it, Roxas failed to include his own name in the list of suspected collaborators he himself asked Lorenzo Tañada to prepare in July 1946.
(See photo: Declassified CIA report on the possible developments resulting from the granting of amnesty . . .)
My father worked on Guam and later he joined the US Air Force in Andersen Air Force Base where he was a firefighter.
These are his medals, dog tags, and US Air Force Fire Man’s badge.
For all Veterans, past and present, especially Filipinos whose military service during WWII were deemed “not active military service.”
Just two (2) months after the Philippines was granted independence, on Sept. 4, 1946, The New Times published an article saying that former puppet President Jose P. Laurel called Roxas a collaborator.
The Philippines was only liberated in the military sense. In every other sense, the Japanese collaborators retained effective control of the Philippine Islands, an abandoned US territory.
The US Senate of the 79th US Congress did not ratify the Treaty of Manila and the granting of independence until Oct. 22, 1946. How could the US Senate still proceed with the granting of a US territory, independence under the control of unknown anti-American quislings and traitors?
This is Washington DC’s Jekyll and Hyde foreign policy towards the only US territory ever granted dependent-independence.
