House bill filed giving comfort women P.5M each

By Cynthia D. Balana
January 31, 2005

A total of 185 surviving comfort women will each get P500,000 under proposed legislation that would allow the government to advance the payments to them while their legal battle for compensation from Japan is awaiting resolution.

Paranaque City Representative Roilo Golez, the measure's proponent, urged House members to speed up passage of the bill while the comfort women were still alive. Most of them are in their '80s.

He proposed a ballpark figure of P92 million to fund the bill to compensate the comfort women, the term used to refer to women from the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries who were forced to be sex slaves of Japanese soldiers during World War II.

"What use is the money if they're already dead?," said Golez, using a Filipino adage to stress the urgency of the measure at a packed public hearing conducted by the House committee on foreign relations.

The committee also approved two House resolutions urging Congress to support the compensation bill despite the apprehensions of officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Justice and the Commission on Human Rights.

The committee chair, Cebu Representative Antonio Cuenco, immediately referred the resolutions for plenary approval.

Foreign Undersecretary Jose Brillantes warned committee members that approving the resolutions could have serious repercussions on diplomatic and trade relations with Japan.

He said the Philippines must be "sensitive" to the feelings of Japan, which he said has been the country's "most gracious" and biggest donor of development funds.

Brillantes said the Philippines may already be legally barred from seeking compensation for the comfort women as the damages being sought were included in the reparations agreement with Japan shortly after the end of World War II.

But Golez said it would be unjust to let the comfort women die without the government lifting a finger to help them.

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