Duterte skips Balangiga arrival rites

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte will not attend the handover of the Balangiga Bells on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018 at Villamor Air Base in Pasay City.

Duterte was supposed to lead the turnover rites but the Palace said the President would go to Eastern Samar on Saturday to witness the installation of the bells in Balangiga.

The bells were seized by American soldiers as war booty in 1901. They were put on display at the Trophy Park of the F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

US Press Attache Molly Koscina said the return of the bells is historic.

“The return of Balangiga bells is the end of many, many years of efforts by many, many different people,” she said.

“I think that there have been a number of [former Philippine] presidents who have worked on the return of the Balangiga bells, [as well as] a number of [US and Philippine] secretaries of defense, a number of Philippine and

“It’s been decades worth of work. There were some legal issues. I think it’s time for the bells to come back,” Koscina said.

On Sunday, Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo said the government was “enthusiastically awaiting” the return of the bells and thanked the US for it.

He said the return of the Balangiga bells to

between the Philippines and America. US Press Attache Molly Koscina