Rescission Act

The 1946 United States statute that retroactively declared Filipino service in the United States Armed Forces in the Far East “shall not be deemed to be or to have been service in the military or naval forces of the United States” for veterans-benefit purposes.

Congress substituted a one-time US$200 million transfer, which Commonwealth President Sergio Osmeña called “inadequate,” for an estimated US$3 billion in promised benefits. Over 200,000 Filipinos who had fought under the American flag were affected, and of the 66 Allied nations, Filipino veterans alone were denied full military benefits. Partial redress came decades later: naturalisation rights in 1990, VA health benefits in 2003, and one-time payments in 2009, under which about 22,000 of roughly 42,755 claims had been approved by 2018.

Source: The Rescission Act of 1946, signed by President Harry S. Truman on 18 February 1946, while the Philippines was still a United States commonwealth. Compiled record with the statutory language and the redress timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescission_Act_of_1946 . The course uses it because the injustice here is not inferred from a pattern. It is written in the statute, in one sentence.

First used in: 1.5 · Ruin, and the pardon nobody voted for