Balangiga bells: So full of meaning
AN
exhilarating moment it certainly was for the faithful in Balangiga town, Eastern Samar, at dawn on Sunday when one of three historic church bells was rung for the first time in 117 years to usher Simbang Gabi at the San Lorenzo de Martir Church.
The bells were finally returned last week after decades of tireless efforts to get them back to the Philippines. They were seized by US forces after Filipino revolutionaries armed with bolos attacked a garrison of the US Army’s 9th Infantry Regiment and killed around 50 US soldiers on Sept. 28, 1901, during the Philippine-American War.
The significance of the historic church bells varies. For American war veterans, the bells formed part of a war memorial to fallen US soldiers – the reason two of the bells were displayed at the Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, while the third was brought to a US Army base in South Korea where the 9th Infantry Regiment had been assigned.
For the Philippines, the bells symbolize the Filipinos’ courage and gallantry, despite being ill-equipped militarily, in resisting foreign invaders and fighting for freedom and selfdetermination.
But for many people in Balangiga, the bells are also a painful reminder of a dark past when the area was transformed into a “howling wilderness” in 1901 as retaliating American soldiers embarked on a kill-and-burn policy in which thousands of Filipinos above 10 years old were massacred and whole villages burned down.
Balangiga old timers grew up hearing stories, passed on from generation to generation, of the atrocities inflicted upon local folks, including women and children perceived to be capable of swinging bolos, to avenge the deaths of US soldiers.
For the religious, the bells are a “symbol of God’s voice” calling on everyone to congregate and pray, according to Monsignor Lope C. Robredillo, vicar general of the Diocese of Borongan, where the Balangiga Church belongs.
“For a man of faith, when a church bell rings, he takes it as a call from God himself,” Fr. Robredillo explained in his homily at the Holy Mass after the turnover of the bells on Saturday.
“So, when the bell rings for the Mass, it is God who calls us to congregate as a community, as his own people,” he said. “When the bell rings for baptism, wedding, and funeral, it is God who calls us to experience His presence in the decisive moments of our existence.”
He said that as a sacred object, the bell “sanctifies events in moments of our lives, it makes us aware of God’s presence in our daily talk and walk.”
The bell also had practical uses. “In fact, during Spanish time, when there was a dearth of clocks and no sound system, it is not an exaggeration to say that the life of the village somehow revolved around the bell – it rang to tell them to gather for the Mass, to pray the Angelus, to succor the souls in purgatory during the anima, to tell the time, to announce big events, to signal emergencies, to warn of Moro raids or impending disaster,” Fr. Robredillo said. “Thus, the bell was an integral part of the Filipino village. Its sound was the only one that could be heard by all.”
Now that the Balangiga bells are back where they belong, Fr. Robredillo asks: “Can they serve as real reminder for us all to allow God to speak to us? Shall we truly respond to God’s call through the clear voice of the bells and listen attentively to His words? Can they become a motivation for people to gather for Sunday Mass in numbers larger than usual? Will they make us more prayerful than before? Will the return of these bells become a new launching pad for a new evangelization in the parish, in the diocese, and even in the Church in the Philippines?”
He said the return of the bells “would be more in accord with the spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness between the United States and the Philippines to put them in the place where they were before the PhilippineAmerican conflict — the parish church. That would even strengthen the bond between the two countries forged after Independence to date, and bury hate and conflict that were kindled during that deplorable episode of history.”
President Duterte, for his part, said the bells’ return happened “because of the fervent prayers of the entire Filipino nation” as he made clear that “nobody can claim singular credit for the generous act of the Americans.” In his speech during the turnover rites, he stressed: “Credit goes to American people and to Filipino people, period.”
Since the 1950s, efforts to get the bells back on Philippine soil were met with frustration amid stiff opposition particularly from US war veterans. “Good-hearted individuals and groups labored for decades to bring the bells home. Former presidents, Cabinet secretaries, Philippine and US ambassadors, historians, philanthropists and many others worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the history of the bells and to advocate for their dignified return,” US ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim said during arrival rites last Dec. 11 when the bells were finally brought back.
The long and tedious process reminds me of what 19th century social reformer Jacob Riis wrote: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it – but all that had gone before.”