I HAVE been lecturing for years now on “Editorial Writing” to high school and elementary students during the annual press conferences of the Department of Education (DepEd). Since I always stress knowledge of the topic, I sometimes ask them about the bells of Balangiga, which were among those mentioned by President Duterte when he started lambasting the Americans early in his term even as he professed love for China.
The students are almost always stumped. They apparently needed some brushing up on history. Balangiga is in Eastern Samar and figured in Philippine history when the villagers there attacked Company C of the 9th US Infantry Regiment in 1901 during the Philippines-American War. They killed 48 Americans and wounded 22 others. Some 20 to 25 villagers died. The signal for the attack was the pealing of the church bells.
The Americans under Gen. Jacob Smith retaliated days later by shooting on sight Filipino male capable of bearing arms, or those above ten years of age. Jacob’s order was to turn Samar in to a “howling wilderness. They burned the Catholic Church and looted two bells that they brought as war booty to the US. Those bells were the subject of Duterte’s demand for the Americans to make amends for what they did in Samar and to the Filipinos in general during that war.
Last August, US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis notified US lawmakers that the US Department of Defense intended to return the Balangiga bells to the Philippines. Dr. Rolando Borrinaga of the Committee on Historical Research of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts said that a ceremony will be held today at the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne Wyoming, where the bells currently are, for their repatriation to the Philippines.
“The latest successful campaign for the return of the Bells of Balangiga was largely a veterans-to-veterans effort. So many in the U.S. veterans community have let their voices be known and lent their support--including national resolutions of support from both the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the American Legion,” he was quoted as saying in an ABS-CBN report.
So before the so-called diehard Duterte supporters (DDS) jump up and down with glee and praise to high heavens their idol, it is good to repeat what Borrinaga clarified: the return of the Balangiga bells is largely a veterans-to-veterans effort. The President’s criticism of the US for keeping the bells may have influenced their return but the pat on the back should be on the people who did the dirty work.
Two major war veteran organizations in the US, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Americam Legion passed resolutions allowing the return of the bells. A special legislation under the US National Defense Authorization Act of 2018 was also introduced in the US Congress.
“We can claim ‘yung influence, ‘yung sabi ni President Duterte ang naka-influence. (But) in the American scheme of things, it boils down to paper trail,” Borrinaga said. “Parang sa aking observation, halos wala naman talagang paper trail galing sa Pilipinas related to this campaign.”
So there. Hard work, not mere talk, should be credited for the return to Samar of the Balangiga bells.