FOR WHOM SHOULD THE BALANGIGA BELLS TOLL? Photo: saludybenedicto.wordpress.com FOR WHOM SHOULD THE BALANGIGA BELLS TOLL? he Commission on Filipinos Overseas fully supports the Philippine government’s appeal Tto the United States of America for the return of the Balangiga Bells. During his July 24, 2017 State of the Nation Address, President Rodrigo Duterte asked the US government “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.” The Philippines has been waiting for over a century for the US to free its last prisoners from the 1899-1901 Philippine-American War -- the Balangiga Bells. For Filipinos, the Bells are not only sacred, religious relics. They symbolize the country’s aspiration and struggle for freedom and national independence. The capture of the bells traces its roots to the war between American soldiers and Filipino guerrillas on September 28, 1901 in the coastal town of Balangiga in Eastern Samar. The bells were taken as war trophies from the Church of Balangiga, following a surprise attack by hundreds of local Filipino residents on the US war veterans of Company C, 9th US Infantry Regiment. The attackers, led by Katipunan General Vicente Lukban, were protesting the starvation forced on them by the destruction and seizure of their food stocks, the rounding of about 80 villagers for forced labor and detained in crowded cells with little food and water, and their having been humiliated by the foreign intruders. They were disguised as women, carrying coffins with bolo and machete-like knives when they attacked the army base. The bloody conflict became popularly known in history as the “Balangiga Massacre,” described by the US military as its “worst single defeat” in the Philippines and among the worst defeats in its entire history. The Americans were initially driven off with heavy losses – 48 were killed and 22 were wounded. However, they counter-attacked with vengeance over the next few weeks. General Jacob Smith instructed that Samar be converted into a “howling wilderness.” All persons over 10 years of age who have not surrendered and Migration Standpoint Page 2 were capable of carrying arms were to be shot. This directive caused the deaths of ten of thousands of Filipino civilians and the total destruction of the town. THE BELLS SEIZED AS WAR BOOTIES After razing the town of Samar, the church bells in Balangiga, which were used to signal the surprise attack by Filipino guerillas were seized, together with the 1557 Queen Mary Tudor canon, as war booties in 1901 by the US 11th Infantry Regiment, Photo: globalnation.inquirer.net known as the “Wyoming volunteers.” The two bells are presently enshrined at the Trophy Park of the F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne in Wyoming Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The regiment’s command set up the bells in a brick monument in honor of the American veterans who died in the conflict. The inscription sandblasted on the side of the bells proclaimed: “These bells signaled the attack by bolo tribesmen on Sunday morning, the 28th of September 1901, in which Company C of the 9th US Infantry was massacred.” The third bell is in the possession of a US Army unit in Tongduchon, South Korea. All these bells belong to the same set of three bells taken from the church belfry of Balangiga in 1901. The main reason for the failure of the return of the bells could be traced to two contrasting versions (Filipino and American) of the Balangiga Massacre. The American group opposing it has analyzed it as a dastardly, cowardly act carried out against naïve and kindly Americans doing pacification work in the Philippines. For the US military, they are the spoils of war, compensation for the loss of life on that terrible day. The Filipinos, on the other hand, A marker about Balangiga view the Balangiga attack as a courageous uprising against a cruel, massacre in Balangiga, Samar foreign oppressor. For some Filipinos, the bells are symbol of the long, hard struggle for independence. For Catholics and people of Balangiga, they are religious relics that need to be returned to its proper home in the church. INITIATIVES FOR THE RETRIEVAL OF THE BELLS Since 1950s and after the country gained independence from the US, the Philippine government, religious organizations and several groups and individuals (both in the Philippines and US) have been working assiduously to gain US support for the return of the bells. Photo: 1.bp.blogspot.com Migration Standpoint Page 3 Timeline of Initiatives Filipino priest and historian, Fr. Horacio de la Costa, wrote to Mr. Chip Wards, 1958 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. The American Franciscan Fathers in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental wrote to Mr. Wards, claiming 1959 that one of the two bells (dated 1883 and 1889, respectively) was of Franciscan origin. The National Historical Institute authorized the installation of a historical marker in 1982 the plaza of Balangiga where the massacre occurred “to honor national heroes and perpetuate the glory of their deeds and to preserve historical sites.” Representative Jose Tan Ramirez of Eastern Samar filed a bill that was passed as RA No. 1988 6692, designating September 28 of every year as “Balangiga Encounter Day”. The Balangiga Historical Society, through the National Historical Institute 1989 and the Department of Foreign Affairs, petitioned the US Government for the return of the town’s church bells. Senator Heherson Alvarez pushed for the return of the bells after 1990 he visited the base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Secretary of National Defense Fidel Ramos met with US Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (a 1990 former congressman of Wyoming), who was in Manila trying to convince the government to keep US military bases in the Philippines. In their meeting, Sec. Ramos raised if the US could return the bells back to the people of Balangiga. The negotiations failed. Migration Standpoint Page 4 Photo: 68.media.tumblr.com Photo: media.gettyimages.com US President Bill Clinton visited the Philippines. During his one-on-one talk with 1994 President Fidel Ramos, he offered to return the Balangiga Bells to the Philippines “in the spirit of fair play.” However, Roy Daza, president of the Eugenio Daza Foundation, whom Pres. Ramos sent to the US to follow up the matter of the bells, was later informed that Pres. Clinton’s offer was considered “illegal” in some State Department circles, the US Air Force, among them. Thus, the quest for the return of the bells was stalled again. Bishop Leonardo Y. Medroso of the Diocese of Borongan, which includes Balangiga, writes to Bishop 1996 Joseph Hart of Cheyenne, asking for help in the return of the bells, Hart offers to return the statue to set an example for the return of other war booty the bells. But this was met with opposition from the local officials of Wyoming. Later on, he would visit Cheyenne to appeal to concerned agencies and organizations - US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Office of Papal Nuncio, legislative aides and members of US Congress and Senate, a Pentagon official and White House staffs - to plead for the return of the bells to the Diocese of Borongan and Parish Church of Balangiga. In the US, Wyoming State Representative Jeff Wasserburger (R-Gillette) and 1997 Representative Jayne Mockler (D-Cheyenne) jointly sponsored a bipartisan resolution of support for the compromise proposal of returning one of the bells. It passed the State Assembly. However, efforts did not materialize because of the strong opposition especially from the American Legion in Wyoming and some legislators who managed to block all compromises between the US and the Philippines. They believe that the return of the bells would desecrate their memorial to US soldiers who died in Balangiga. Five members of the House led by Representative Robert Underwood (D-Guam) introduced 1997 House Resolution 312, urging President Bill Clinton to authorize the transfer of ownership of one of the Balangiga Bells, in time for the Philippine Independence Centennial Celebration. The House Resolution was referred to the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. Senator Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.), however, countered the House Resolution to return one of the Balangiga bells with a Senate measure (S. 1055) that banned 1the return of veterans’ memorial objects without specific authorization in law. Migration Standpoint Page 5 Rolando Borrinaga (left) and Bob Couttie (right). Researchers and advocates for Photo: exorcismphilippines.org the return of Balangiga bells. Photo: michaeldsellers.com President Fidel Ramos proposed a “one original, one replica” sharing formula with the hope of 1998 appeasing both the Filipino and American sides of the controversy. Philippine Ambassador to the US Raul Rabe visited Cheyenne, Wyoming to talk to the local American veterans and the Wyoming Chamber of Commerce about the request of the Philippine President. He proposed that the Philippine government would pay the costs of replicating both bells. Hopeful for the return of the bells and in time for the centennial commemoration of the Philippine Independence, the new Balangiga church belfry, a P5 million special centennial project intended to house the Balangiga, was constructed. However, negotiations to retrieve the bells failed again. The Balangiga Research Group (BRG), an informal multi-national team that has 1998 been investigating the Balangiga Conflict, has collected different print media articles related to the Balangiga event published in the Philippines and the U.S.