Saying that the “Bells of Balangiga” are a part of Filipino culture, Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III yesterday backed up President Rodrigo Duterte’s call for the United States to return the centuries’ old artifacts and other war booties taken by the US soldiers 116 years ago in Samar.
The President called for the return of the Bells of Balangiga during his second State of the Nation Address Monday before a joint session of Congress at the full-house Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City.
“The Bells of Balangiga are important to us because they are a part of our history,” said Pimentel of the artifacts taken as war booties by American soldiers who were sent to cleanse the town of “rebel troops” fighting against US occupation in 1901.
He said the war trophies from Balangiga included two church bells with the Franciscan Order emblems dated 1863 and 1889, respectively, and an English-made cannon dated 1557, now on display at the Trophy Park of the F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
He said Filipinos are asking for the return of the Bells of Balangiga not for their commercial value, but for their cultural value and their ecclesiastical nature, adding that the artifacts are among those listed exempted from the spoils of war like other cultural objects.
He noted the passage of more than a century after the so-called “Balangiga Massacre” where US soldiers killed hundreds of civilians in a counterattack, should suffice to mute the anguish, ease the anger and dull the pain in the hearts of the heirs of the protagonists on both sides of the war.
“And so we ask for the return of the Bells of Balangiga. For the return of the bells will help restore things to the status quo ante and help ease the hidden tensions that haunt the heirs of the Balangiga rebels and the American soldiers,” said Pimentel.
He said the much-sought American gesture would not only mean a closure of the wounds of Filipino-Amercian War but it would also herald a new era of peace and closer cooperation between the governments of the Philippines and of the United States.
On Sept. 28, 2011, Pimentel filed Senate Resolution No. 610, reiterating the call for the return by the United States of America of the Bells of Balangiga and other artifacts and war booties. Then Senate President Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. authored the first resolution passed by the Senate in 2002.
On the other hand, Senator Risa Hontiveros said if the wants the United States to return to us the Balangiga bells, he should have also demanded from China to give us back the territory stolen from us.
“No Waray, No Filipino will not say that we recover the Balangiga bells. He wants to recover the bells of Balangiga ….. But there should be more reason to demand for that portion of the West Philippine Sea that was slowly stolen from us by China,” stressed Hontiveros.
Continuing his independent foreign policy pivot, Duterte pressed from the US to return the bells seized as “war booty” from a church in Balangiga, Eastern Samar, and chimed when American troops massacred an entire village in the said province in 1901 during the Philippine-American war.
“Give us back those Balangiga bells. They are ours. They belong to the Philippines. They are part of our national heritage. Please return it to us. It’s hurting for us,” Duterre told the Americans in his second State of the Nation Address.
He said the church bells of Balangiga were seized by the Americans as spoils of war. He noted that these represented the heroism of Filipinos who resisted Americans.
Two of the three bells of Balangiga are displayed on a former base of the 11th Infantry Regiment at F.E. Sarren Air Force in Cheyenne, Wyoming. They are part of a memorial to 46 US troops killed by Filipino insurgents in 1901.
A third bell is with the 9th US Army Infantry Regiment at Camp Red Cloud, their base in South Korea.
Official documents suggest at least one of the bells had tolled to signal the surprise attack by the Filipinos while the Americans were eating breakfast.
Duterte said the West Philippine Sea issue and federalism are matters that we have to tackle sooner or later, but Hontiveros said she was not convinced. She insisted that Duterte should have also called on the Chinese government about the land being claimed by the Philippimes.
In July last year, the Philippines won its case against China in a landmark ruling by the arbitral tribunal that invalidated Beijing’s massive claims in the South China Sea, parts of which Manila refers to as the West Philippine Sea.
Beijing has repeatedly emphaskzed it has historic claims over nearly the entire South China Sea, including areas that are within Manila’s exclusive economic zone called the West Philippine Sea.
