U.S. returns disputed bells taken from Philippines in 1901
MANILA, Philippines — For over a century, the Bells of Balangiga have not rung in the Philippines, a silence that the president last year called “painful.”
Now, the revered bells will once again be heard in the country.
Hundreds of villagers in 1901, armed with bolos and disguised as women, used one of Balangiga town’s church bells to signal the start of a massive attack that wrought one of the bloodiest single-battle losses of American occupation forces in the Philippines. The U.S. Army brutally retaliated, reportedly killing thousands of villagers, as the Philippine-American War raged.
After the violence, the Americans took three church bells as spoils of war that Filipinos would demand for decades to be handed back.
On Tuesday, a giant U.S. Air Force cargo aircraft brought the Bells of Balangiga back to the Philippine capital in a poignant ceremony that saw U.S. defense officials and the American ambassador to Manila return the war relics 117 years after they were seized. A military brass band played the Philippine national anthem, followed by “The Star Spangled Banner.”
The treaty allies then swept aside a dark episode in their long relationship with joint photographs and handshakes.
“It is my great honor to be here at this closing of a painful chapter in our history,” U.S. Ambassador Sung Kim said. “Our relationship has withstood the tests of history and flourishes today.”
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said the handover is an important gesture of friendship and is in America’s national security interest. Some U.S. veterans and officials had opposed the return of the bells, calling them memorials to American war dead.
At Tuesday’s handover ceremony at a Philippine air force base, the bronze bells stood atop a red platform like silent symbols of a bygone era of hostilities, as American and Philippine flags flapped in the wind. Officials from both sides called for a minute of silence for the war dead.
The bells are revered by Filipinos as symbols of national pride. Two of the bells had been displayed at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo., and the third was with the U.S. Army in South Korea.