Feliciana G Reyes

Feliciana G. Reyes (née Guinto). The law firms Watkins Law & Advocacy, PLLC and Adduci, Mastriani & Schaumberg LLP mourn the loss of our extraordinary yet humble client Feliciana, 91, of Panorama City, CA, who passed away on December 22, 2018 after suffering a stroke following lengthy ill-health. She will be interred on January 4, 2019 at the Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills cemetery in Los Angeles. Born in Arayat, Pampanga, she was a teenager when she joined the guerrillas during WWII while the Philippines was still a U.S. territory, serving in the Medical Corps of the 75th Infantry Regiment, 7th Military District in Negros Oriental, a force "recognized" by General MacArthur. As a ward attendant under the supervision of medical officers and nurses, she cared for sick and wounded American soldiers. By virtue of being a guerrilla in a recognized military force under U.S. operational control, Feliciana also was deemed to be in active service in the Philippine Army. When the liberation campaign on Negros island ended, she was "processed" on June 30, 1945 by the Eighth Army, U.S. Army, in Luzuriaga, served for a short time in USAFFE, and then was discharged. For the last seven decades, she was haunted by the Rescission Acts of 1946 which essentially rendered her and fellow Filipinos ineligible for U.S. veterans' benefits. Congress finally confronted this historical inequity in 2009, granting Filipinos a one-time, remedial payment for their service, and Feliciana applied for the benefit. However, she spent the last 3,232 days of her life battling the Department of Veterans Affairs which inexplicably refused to find her eligible for the benefit and the modicum of respect that accompanied it. To her death, VA and the Army argued that because her name does not appear on the reconstructed guerrilla roster-a notoriously incomplete list of Filipinos created by the U.S. Army three years after her service ended-Feliciana's service could not be verified. Yet, the U.S. Army's records maintained since the war include numerous affidavits confirming her service-only recently disclosed to her in response to a Privacy Act request-signed, as the war ended, by officers in both the Army of the U.S. and the Philippine Army. And during her legal case against VA, she discovered why her name is missing from the roster: an obscure U.S. Army report from 1949, previously classified "secret," reveals that except registered nurses, no Filipino women were permitted to be recognized as having served. She also learned through a Freedom of Information Act request that pursuant to a previously "secret," 1951 Army memo, she could not even seek to fix the injustice of her name being excluded from the roster. The Army has prohibited access to its Board for Correction of Military Records by any aggrieved Filipino guerrilla. Feliciana's appeal of VA's misapplication of the eligibility criteria for the benefit she sought, and the discrimination practiced against her, was fully briefed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and argued on December 3, 2018. Three years earlier, she wrote VA imploring that she qualified for the one-time $15,000 benefit and pled that "I am in poor health and I am endangered of being homeless." Nevertheless, she died without grant of the benefit and before learning the outcome of her appeal. Feliciana was a naturalized U.S. citizen. She married the late Anacleto B. Reyes in 1968 and is survived by two sons, Roberto and Fernando. Her appellate counsel has especially appreciated her positive spirit, her "hope" that her legal fight might have a lasting impact on how history views Filipino veterans let alone her own invisibility to date, and her many messages stating "may God bless us all a lot always forever." She will be sorely missed by us. To honor her service, donations may be made to the Filipino Veterans Recognition and Education Project.