Balangiga bells back today after 117 years
Bill seeks to declare Dec. 11 every year a holiday to mark historic return
After 117 long years, the bells of Balangiga church will be returned. The bells will be flown in from the United States today. A formal handover ceremony will follow at 1:30 p.m. at the Philippine Air Force Grandstand in Villamor Air Base.
A day of national celebration has also been proposed to mark the historic return of the bells of Balangiga Church 117 years after these were seized on September 28, 1901.
A bill has been filed jointly by Rep. Ben Evardone of Eastern Samar, where the Balangiga church is located, and Rep. Raul Daza, a descendant of Eugenio Daza, the highest ranking Filipino officer in Samar during the Philippine-American war.
The proposed House bill seeks to declare December 11 of every year as a special non-working holiday to be known as the “International Friendship, Cooperation and Diplomacy Day in the Philippines.”
Beyond remembering the date when the bells of Balan-
giga church were returned to the Philippines, Reps. Evardone and Daza said, the dedication of the date shall be “in recognition of the decades-long friendly, cooperative, and diplomatic initiatives for the return of the Balangiga Bells.”
“We need to celebrate this landmark event to affirm our abiding commitment to freedom and our sovereignty as a nation. Freedom is won, earned and regained by dint of perseverance, sacrifice and dedication,” Rep. Evardone said.
Three bells were taken as “war trophies” when the US army launched a retaliation in the aftermath of the attack by Filipino soldiers that killed 48 American soldiers stationed in Balangiga, Eastern Samar. The ringing of the bells is said to have given the signal for the attack.
The return of the bells has long been the subject of spirited public clamor and diplomatic negotiation.
Reps. Evardone and Daza cited a policy paper of the Commission on Filipino Overseas policy pointing out that “the Philippine Government, religious organizations and various groups, especially war veterans, and individuals (both in the Philippines and the US) have made initiatives for the return of the bells since 1950s.”
The earliest recorded friendly and diplomatic move was in 1958 when a Filipino historian, Fr. Horacio de la Costa, wrote to Mr. Chip Wards, an American military historian of the 13th Air Force in San Francisco, California, for help in securing the release of the bells by the US Air Force.
In his latest State of the Nation Address (SONA) President Dutertespecifically asked the United States Government, to quote:
“Give us back those Balangiga Bells. They are ours. They belong to the Philippines. They are part of our national heritage. Those bells are reminders of the gallantry and heroism of our forebears who resisted the American colonizers and sacrificed their lives in the process.”
In seeking the passage of their proposed bill, the two representatives said, “The return of the Balangiga bells would finally close that dark period in Philippine history, erase the last vestiges of the atrocities brought about by the American-Philippine War in the 1900s, and strengthen further the alliance between the United States of America (USA) and the Republic of the Philippines, which has, since then, flourished into a more dependable partnership for growth and development.”