US to help resolve PH efforts to recover Balangiga bells
The United States (US) government vowed to work with its Filipino partners to find a resolution to the attempts made by the Philippine government to recover the famous Bells of Balangiga that the US Army took from the town church of Balangiga in Eastern Samar as war booty after reprisals following the Balangiga incident in 1901 during the Philippine-American War.
“We are aware that the Bells of Balangiga have deep significance for a number of people, both in the United States and in the Philippines,” the US Embassy in Manila said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
The US embassy made this declaration after President Duterte said in his second State-of-the-Nation Address that the bells belong to the Philippines and are part of the Filipinos' national heritage.
“Give us back those Balangiga bells. They are ours... Isauli naman ninyo. Masakit yun sa amin (Return them to us. This is painful for us),” said the President. War booty On Sept. 28, 1901, Filipino freedom fighters from the village of Balangiga ambushed Company C of the 9th US Infantry Regiment who were having breakfast, killing an estimated 48 and wounding 22 of the 78 men of the unit, with only four escaping unhurt.
In reprisal, General Jacob H. Smith ordered an indiscriminate retaliatory attack – to "kill everyone over the age of ten" and make Samar island "a howling wilderness."
From the burned-out Catholic town church, the Americans looted three bells which they took back to the US as war trophy.
Two of the three bells, which have been on display at F.E. Warren Air Force Base – formerly an Army post – in Wyoming for more than a century, were taken supposedly because one or both had been used by the Filipino insurgents to signal for the massacre of a whole company.
The third, which the 9th US Infantry Regiment claimed was presented to them by villagers when their unit left Balingaga in April 1902, is currently being kept at the 2nd Infantry Division Museum in Camp Red Cloud, Uijeongbu in South Korea.
Several attempts
There were numerous attempts initiated by the Philippine government to recover all or a portion of the bells.
During the term of former President Fidel Ramos, negotiations were undertaken by the Philippine government with the Clinton administration for the return of the relics.
In 2002, the Senate approved Senate Resolution 393, authored by Aquilino Pimentel Jr., urging the Arroyo administration to undertake formal negotiations with the US for the return of the bells.
Similar moves were taken by several members of the US Congress who filed a House resolution in 2005 urging then President George W. Bush to authorize the transfer of ownership of one of the bells to the people of the Philippines. The resolution died in 2007, with the sine die adjournment of the 109th United States Congress. The same thing happened when the bill was reintroduced in the 110th US Congress.
The most recent attempt by a legislator to facilitate the return of the artifacts was on October 25, 2007when Sen. Manny Villar during the 14th Congress filed Senate Resolution 177 "expressing the sense of the Senate for the return to the Philippines of the Balangiga Bells which were taken by the US troops from the town of Balangiga, Province of Samar in 1901"
On Tuesday, Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone filed a resolution directing the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to exhaust all means to recover the three Balangiga bells from the United States government.
Under House Resolution 1142, Evardone called on the Philippine government “to persevere and take further steps in its diplomatic efforts” to recover the Balangiga bells.
Amid the Lower Chamber’s passage of resolutions in the 15th and 16th Congresses calling for the US’ return of the bells, the Balangiga bells still remain at the hands of the US. (With reports from Charissa M. Luci-Atienza and Nestor L. Abrematea)