THE Filipino people welcomes the news of the return of the Balangiga bells from the US military camp in Wyoming and South Korea. It is a positive step in correcting one of the symbols of the historical wrongs committed by the Americans in the Philippines. With this, we remember and honor the heroism of Filipino men and women who valiantly fought American occupation and aggression.
The bells were among the war booties of American occupation forces as they pillaged and burned the villages of the country and took the lives of thousands of inhabitants in the brutal war of aggression during the bloody Filipino-American war more than a century ago.
Balangiga, Samar was among the most terrorized Philippine locality during that war as it bore the brunt of the war crimes committed by the notorious American occupational forces under Gen. Jacob Smith who ordered his troops “to kill and burn” and to “turn Samar into a howling wilderness.”
The massacre of innocent children, elderly, women and men ensued after the notorious general said, “The more you kill, the more you burn, the more you will please me. Anybody capable of bearing arms, anybody ten years and above, must be shot.”
In the guise of Benevolent Assimilation, the brutal war lasted for more than a decade and ensured the submission of the archipelago into American imperialist designs with the assistance of pro-American Filipino oligarchs. An entire generation of Filipinos grew up in this period of colonial war of aggression.
More than a century after the Balangiga bells were stashed out of the country, and after long and arduous campaigns of patriotic Filipinos for the return of the bells and for the recognition of the brutality committed by American aggression during the decades of wars of aggression against the Filipino people, the bells are finally returning home.
It should be recognized as a victory on the part of the Filipino people. This victory should never be taken away from the people by way of the presentation of a modern version of Benevolent Assimilation campaign that presents the magnanimity of the colonizer and masks its long years of brutal aggression against the Filipino people.
Instead of giving credit to the American government for its decision to return the bells to the Filipino people, it should instead be told to apologize for the horrors that it brought to our shores since the Filipino-American war. It should be held accountable for the deaths of thousands of Filipinos, for the economic dislocation of communities, and for the general malaise in American-sponsored Philippine regimes.
The descendants of the local oligarchs that welcomed the Americans since more than a century ago still lurk as the leaders of Philippine society to this day--continuously supporting American wars of aggression in the Philippines and elsewhere. This they did in exchange for colonial patronage.
The local oligarchs should be equally held liable for the violence and misery of the wars of aggression that Balangiga symbolized the most. (Tanggol Kasaysayan, Kilos na Para sa Makabayang Edukasyon (KMed), Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT-Philippines))