WASHINGTON — Aging Filipino veterans who fought in the U.S. Army during World War II are waging another battle, this time in Congress.

They're afraid that lawmakers may recess for the year without acting on a bill granting them full U.S. veteran status, which would make them eligible for benefits such as pensions, some additional healthcare, education and job training.

More than a dozen veterans, most in their 80s and 90s, spent time in October and November walking congressional halls pushing for action. The veterans expect to continue their campaign when Congress returns from its Thanksgiving break in December.

"We are frustrated because the bill has not moved to the floor," said Art Caleda, 84, of Waipahu, a former intelligence officer with the guerrillas fighting in the Philippines during the war. "The veterans are dying, one after the other. We are getting older and older."

Both Senate and House veterans' affairs committees have approved bills to give full veteran status to the roughly 20,000 Filipino veterans — about 2,000 in Hawai'i alone — who are still alive. About 200,000 Filipinos fought in the U.S. Army in World War II.

The measures have not come up for a vote in either chamber.

If the bill isn't passed before Congress completes the budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, the Filipino veterans will have to wait until 2009 before receiving full benefits.

"I hope 2007 will not be another tragic year for us in getting benefits," said Caleda, who was wounded in 1944 while helping rescue a downed U.S. pilot. "In the last two months, we have had four (Filipino) veterans die in Hawai'i."

Fred Diaz, 90, of Jersey City, N.J., who was in an artillery unit on Bataan, said the Filipinos fought side-by-side with American soldiers.

"At the time, we swore allegiance to the flag of the United States, we were nationals of the United States and our commanding officers were Americans," said Diaz, who escaped after Bataan's surrender and also joined the guerrillas. "I'm now fighting for our benefits, which have been denied to us for 61 years."

Under present law, many Filipino veterans are denied full Veterans Affairs Department benefits, such as pensions for low-income veterans older than 65 — almost $11,000 a year for single veterans — and survivors' death pensions.

Some Republicans are blocking the bill from coming to the floor for debate and vote because they are concerned about the bill's provision granting special pensions of $300 a month to low-income veterans living in the Philippines. They say the amount would be equal to 129 percent of that country's average household income and offered an unsuccessful committee amendment to cut it to $100 a month.

"By refusing to look at the purchasing power of the benefits being provided here, this legislation would pay veterans in the Philippines far more in benefits and pensions than we pay our own veterans," U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, a Republican from Idaho, said on the Senate floor earlier this month.

Craig, a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, also is concerned that the Filipino veterans' benefits would come from money that now pays a special monthly pension for elderly and housebound U.S. veterans.

U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, chairman of the committee and sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, is pushing to overcome the opposition.

"I would ... address a 60-year wrong that is still being done to Filipino veterans who served under the U.S. armed forces in World War II," he said.

The Filipinos were ordered into U.S. military service shortly before the Japanese invaded the Philippines in December 1941, and fought with other U.S. soldiers on Corregidor and Bataan. After the islands fell in 1942, many were part of organized guerrilla units.

But in 1946, Congress stripped many of their eligibility for full veterans' benefits. Since then, Filipino veterans and their advocates have won some benefits, but even that was limited only to some veterans.

Celestino Almeda, 90, of Alexandria, Va., said the Filipino veterans can't understand why an agreement can't be reached.

"It's been put off time and again, and the session is about to end next month," said Almeda, who was part of an anti-sabotage unit when the Japanese invaded and later a member of a resistance force.

"If it does not happen, it will go to the next year and every day at least five veterans die."

Reach Dennis Camire at dcamire@gns.gannett.com.