Cornelio R. Besinga v. United States of America U.S. Attorney General

Appellant pro se, Cornelio R. Besinga, a World War II veteran of the Philippine Commonwealth Army, challenges the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the United’ States. He contends that the court erroneously rejected his constitutional challenge to the First Supplemental Surplus Appropriation Rescission Act of 1946. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We affirm.

I

The resolution of Besinga’s constitutional challenge to the classification implicit in the First Supplemental Surplus Appropriation Rescission Act requires some familiarity with the history of joint U.S.-Filipino involvement in the Second World War. On July 26, 1941, with the increasing likelihood of war with Imperial Japan, President Roosevelt invoked his powers under § 2(a)(12) of the Philippine Independence Act to “call and order into the service of the Armed Forces of the United States ... all of the organized military forces of the Government of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.” 6 Fed.Reg. 3825 (1941). Besinga, like thousands of his comrades, was thus temporarily brought into the service of the United States military.

At this time, the Philippines was a territory of the United…