Filipino American Veterans of American - Nevada Chapter

About Us

E-mail Print PDF

WELCOME MESSAGE

 

Fellow Veterans, Families, Sponsors, and Friends:

Welcome to our website. The Filipino-American Veterans and Families of America - Nevada (FAVFA-NV) is a non-partisan, state non-profit, veteran advocacy group formed to promote and represent the best interests, concerns, and voices of Filipino American veterans and all veterans of all wars and their families residing within the state of Nevada.

The Filipino-American Veterans and Familes of America - Nevada (FAVFA-NV) was officially founded on April 10, 2010 after a year of experience working with our WWII Fil-Am veterans in helping them claim for their due compensation upon the passage of the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill in 2009.

Our main projects include supporting the two bills that were recently introduced in Congress, namely, HR 6464 which was introduced by Congressman Dr. Joe Heck, on September 24, 2012, and Senate Bill 3530, "Filipino Veterans Fairness Act," introduced by Senator Dean Heller on September 12, 2012.  The S.3530 will force the DOD to come up with a process to review all claims and documentation from WW Filipino and Filipino-American veterans.  HR 6464 will specifically direct the VA to accept Philippine Government and other authenticated US and PH sources of documents from WWII Filipino and Fil-Am veterans.  This bill also would allow veterans who missed the filing deadline in 2010 to apply.  These two bills were introduced after the H.R. 210 - The Filipino Veterans Fairness Act of 2011, was abandoned because it could not get referred to a veterans affairs review committee, despite having 96 co-sponsors of the bill.  We will now start contacting and continue to communicate with senators and congress representatives nationwide to support the above bills to benefit our Filipino-American veterans and citizens.

We also helped our late Cmdr Francisco Cedula, WWII Millitary Advisor and lone survivor of the Battle of Piis, at Km 134, Lucban, Quezon to complete the memorial shrine on May 2, 2011 for the over 100 Americans and Filipinos who died during that battle on December 21, 1946. These heroes gave their lives in slowing down the invasion of the Japanese Forces and allowing General Douglas MacArthur's small USAFFE units to regroup in Bataan.

The Fil-Am Veterans and Families of America - Nevada (FAVFA-NV) has initiated a plea to President Obama in issuing an Executive Order to direct the VA or NPRC to accept other authenticated US and Philippine war record documents to recognize and compensate the remaining 24,000 denied WWII Filipino and Fil-Am veterans.  Luke Perry, our Press Secretary, has been instrumental in keeping this initiave going.  As of now, the VA is solely using the NPRC Missouri roster or list to approve or deny claims from our WWII veterans.  The roster has been closed for any update since 1947.  It has since suffered from a fire damage and list reconstruction.  Consequently, thousands of authenticated documents that came after 1947 were excluded.  We fear that the over 24,000 denied claimants will "fade" away within five to ten years.  This is why time is of the essence for our President (Commander-in-Chief) to act on this Executive Order this 2012. 

We want to thank Mayor Carolyn Goodman of Las Vegas, NV for proclaiming February 3, 2012, as the "WWII Filipino Veterans Fairness Day" in support of HR 210.  

We are currently working with the office of Congressman Joe Heck to help 5 of our 6 remaining WWII Filipino-American veterans (out of the over 24,000 total) who have been denied their $15000 compensation because their names are not in the NPRC Missouri files. They are now dubbed as the "Mighty Five" denied WWII veterans from Nevada. 

The FAVFA-NV is very active in the Fil-Am and Asian community of Las Vegas as a volunteer for various community events such as wellness and flu shot clinics, voter registration, cultural presentations, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, and veteran stand-downs for our homeless veterans.

The officers and members encourage you to join our organization and become part of our veterans' voice and community service.  You may use the contact tab on the top of website to for any questions about our projects and initiatives. 

For God and Country and in serving those who have served.

Ray Castillo, President

WWII USAFFE Veteran & Member of Nevada's unrecognized "Mighty Five" WWII Filipino American veterans

 

 

What's Happening?

E-mail Print PDF

3rd Annual "Salute to All Veterans" Dinner Ball on November 3: 

We would like to thank all the over 150 veterans and their families, our distinguised speaker, Major General Delfin Lorenzana, AFP (Ret), Head of our Philippine Veterans Affairs Office in Washington, DC, our awardees: Jack Finn and Chaunsey Chau-Duong from Senator Heller's Office, Keith Hughes from Congressman Joe Heck's Office, Chuck Baker of the Veterans Reporter, the Las Vegas Review Journal, and Atty. Nadia Jurani, and various community leaders from the Filipino-American and Las Vegas community for attending and participating to honor all our WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, the Cold War (Silent Service), Gulf War:  Operation Desert Shield/Storm, OIF, OEF, OND, and Afghanistan veterans and heroes.  This third annual event was held at the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino.

We also want to thank our staunch supporter and event sponsors and advertisers, veteran Dixon Keller and the Humana Corporation, Atty. Nadia Jurani from The Accounting and Law Offices of Nadia Jurani, Esq., LLC, Ray's Asian Cuisine, Amie Belmonte of Senior Resources, LLC, Sterling Insurance Agency, LLC, and Ron Quilang of JPE, and ASAP Mail and Copy stores. 

The highlight of the event was the awarding of twelve Philippine Liberation Medals (PLM) to our dozen WWII veterans, including Kenny Rogers (not the singer), a Navy veteran who served aboard the battleship, USS New Jersey (BB62), which participated in clearing the beach heads of Leyte Gulf before the landing of General MacArthur's troops.  Mr. Rogers is from the Paralyzed Veterans of America - NV Chapter.  The Philippine Liberation Medal is awarded to both Filipino and American veterans who participated in the liberation of the Philippines during the period of October 17, 1944 through September, 1945.

Over 100 photos are now ready to be viewed at www.vicesquivel.com.  Just look for the FAVFA, November 3 event, enter your name and email address.  You may also go to our facebook account: http://www.facebook.com/filamvets1 and click on the event title to enter the photo website.

 

 Membership Meeting Highlights:

July 14 - A special meeting with our denied WWII Fil-Am veterans and their families on July 14 to provide them with a true account on where their claims stand.  We are awaiting a report from one of Congressman Joe Heck's staff member who visited Fort Knox and the NPRC where our WWII Filipino Veteran records are supposedly housed.  The reason for this visit was because we received a letter from VA Secretary Shinseiki advising us that we should go after the US Army in requesting our WWII Filipino Veteran records and not the VA.  Congressman Joe Heck's office was advised that our WWII Filipino Veteran records will be archived and transferred to Fort Knox.  We have also asked our Nevada State Legislature Committee on Veterans Affairs to write a letter to the President on behalf of our aging and dying WWII Filipino and Filipino-American veterans.  To date, we have not received any contact from the President's office regarding an Executive Order which we requested back in March of 2012.   Our WWII veterans and families have expressed their sentiment on the inaction by the White House on our pleas and request for an Executive Order.  They have unanimously asked that we need to be more assertive in our approaches since time is of the essence for our over 24,000 denied WWII Filipino and Filipino-American veterans as they approach the final stages of their lives.  The idea of a Political Action Committee was discussed and higly endorsed.   You will hear more about this new PAC, "Filipino American Families of America in Politics" in the future.

 October 6 - A membership meeting was held with our WWII Veterans and their families to update them on the upcoming Las Vegas visit of Philippine Ambassador Cuisia this month. 

October 13 -  The WWII veterans and their families met with Ambassador Jose Cuisia, Jr., and were able to discuss with the Ambassador their ongoing struggle for recognition and to also request the Ambassador to talk to the Philippine President Benigno Aquino on their behalf for President Aquino to communicate to the White House his support to finally get recognition for the over 24,000 denied Filipino and Filipino-American WWII veterans.  General Delfin Lorenzana, Head of the Philippine Veterans Affairs in Washington, DC, coordinated the meeting. 

November 7 - A special meeting was held with all officers, WWII veterans and their families to go over the results of the Nov. 6 election and future actions for our FAVFA-NV Chapter.  Now that the elections are over and both Senator Dean Heller and Congressman Joe Heck go their mandate, our organization focus will now shift to the advocating of the Senate Bill 3530 - Filipino Veterans Fairness Act which was introduced by Senator Heller, and House Bill 6464, which was introduced by Congressman Joe Heck.  Both bills were introduced in September 2012.   FAVFA-NV Chapter will now be doing future communications and/or visits with both Congresswoman-elect Dina Titus and Congressman-elect Steven Horsford to obtain their support of HR Bill 6464 to help our WWII Filipino-American veterans finally get recognized and compensated.  Of course, we will also be doing the same for Senator Harry Reid in getting his support of Senate Bill 3530.  FAVFA-NV honored Senator Reid in 2010 and 2011 for his help in pushing for the Filipino Veteran Equity Compensation Act that was passed in February, 2009.  To date, there's still $41 Million dollars remaining in this FVEC fund to help take care of the claims by the over 24,000 denied WWII Filipino and Filipino-American veterans.

November 11 - Veterans Day Parade.  Over 21 officers, veterans, members, and families participated in the Veterans Day Parade conducted Downtown 4th Avenue.  This is the largest parade west of Mississippi with approximately 30-40,000 spectators watching this yearly event.  Our regular event sponsor, Humana Corporation and Dixon Keller, and Congressman Joe Heck were there to have photos with our group and celebrate the parade.  It was a fun day for everyone.  Please go to our facebook account, filamvets1, to see some of the photos.

December 23 - A new set of officers for 2013 installed.  Mr. Ray Castillo, one of Congressman Joe Heck's surviving unrecognized "Mighty Five" member will take over as the President of the FAVFA-NV Chapter.  Mr. Castillo is a WWII U. S. Armed Forces of the Far East (USAFFE) veteran who was part of the 121st Infantry, S2 Division, in Northern Luzon.  Luke Perry and Ceasar Elpidio will continue to support the organization as Board Advisors and Press/Media & Government Relations officers.  They will also continue to update and maintain this website and facebook media.

UPDATES ON FACEBOOK:  Please follow us on FACEBOOK for current events and activities.  Photos and recent events affecting our fight for our WWII Filipino and Filipino-American Veterans are posted at http://www.facebook.com/filamvets1.

 

  • Our New Registered Name:  Filipino-American Veterans and Families of America - Nevada Chapter (FAVFA-NV).  Because of the evolving mission to help our WWII veterans and ALL veterans and their families throughout the United States, our name has been modified from Filipino-American Veterans of Nevada to truly reflect our expanded mission and focus.  As we mature as an organization, we expect to have ongoing reorganizations and realignment to ensure our effectiveness.  Regular announcements will be made at our upcoming meetings and/or will be posted here on our website, as soon as they occur.

    • Meeting Location:  We are still in the process of looking for a long-term venue for our regular meetings.  We will notify members through e-mail as soon as we complete our selection. 

    • We will also acknowledge all members with businesses so feel free to come network and let us know of your respective businesses.  We support all veteran-owned businesses as a way to show our appreciation and loyalty.
    • For further questions or information, please call Ceasar at 592-3067.

     

    Copyright © 2011 Filipino American Veterans of Nevada. All Rights Reserved. Site by Simply Dezined, LLC