Office of the P.A.'s Site

Asec. Jerry Adevoso, either as Head-Office of Veterans Affairs at the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC or as Presidential Assistant for Veterans Affairs at the Office of the President in Malacanang, attended and participated in all the activities and events shown in the photo and video albums posted here, representing both the war veterans and their descendants and the President of the Republic, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Contrary to general perception, the war veterans sector is alive, vibrant, active and relevant to the national mainstream. War veterans' descendants (children, grandchildren and other direct descendants recognized under RA 6948) are legally a part of the sector and have bloated its numbers. New veterans (the AFP Retirees) continue to increase the ranks of the veterans sector every year.

The veterans sector has its own nationally- and legally-recognized umbrella organization in the Veterans Federation of the Philippines (created by RA 2640 in June 1960). All individual veterans organizations are required to fall under the jurisdiction of the VFP, which in turn is supervised by the Department of National Defense.

Over the past 60 years, with the help of all past national and local governments, the war veterans have organized and sustained their civic, social and business organizations including the Philippine Veterans Bank and the Board of Trustees of Veterans of WWII, the Veterans Industrial Estate, and others.

Veterans have always participated in mainstream government since 1946. Several war veterans have become Presidents - Manuel Roxas, Ramon Magsaysay, Diosdado Macapagal, Ferdinand Marcos, and Fidel Ramos. Two descendants of war veterans have also become Presidents - Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

War veterans in the immediate post-war era up to today have also become senators, congressmen, governors, mayors etc. thus contributing to the development of the Philippines not just during war but also and especially in times of peace.

In return, a grateful nation has treated our veterans with honor. The 1987 Philippine Constitution, in its Article 16, Section 7, mandates the State to provide benefits for and to take care of Filipino veterans. Current national government budgets for pensions and benefits of war veterans (excluding budgets for AFP Retirees) totals some P15 billion annually.

Even descendants have government benefits in the form of educational benefits and additional points in civil service exams. In 2007, President Arroyo approved the OPAVA recommendation that the government's microfinance program for budding entrepreneurs also be extended to war veterans' descendants.

War veterans and their organizations work out their concerns through the Veterans Federation of the Philippines (VFP) which by virtue of RA 2640 is the recognized umbrella organization of all veterans in the Philippines. Veterans' descendants work through several organizations spread out all over the country, the largest of them being the VFP-Sons & Daughters Association Inc. (VFP-SDAI), the World War II Heritage Organization Inc. (WWII HERO), the Golden Kris Fraternal Society Inc. (GKFS) and the Angkan ng mga Bayani ng Ikalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig Inc. (ANGKAN).

The OPAVA currently receives daily from 50-100 visitors, telephone calls, text, fax, and email messages and snail mails from war veterans, their widows and their descendants. All their concerns are, in one way or another, attended to by OPAVA