Sunday Read: Battle renewed over Bells of Balangiga

Two of the Bells of Balingiga are in display at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.

DEPENDING ON which side of the Philippine-American War you study, the Bells of Balangiga are either a memorial to the American war dead; or, a tribute honoring Filipino patriots. 

That -- in a nutshell -- is the central argument over a set of three church bells taken from a church in the Philippines by American soldiers during the Philippine-American War, a little known chapter that hardly gets a paragraph in U.S. history books.

Desperately looking for an ally in Asia, the Trump administration wants to appease Philippine strongman President Rodrigo Duterte by returning the set of bells that have been in U.S. hands since the Philippine War 

Wyoming's congressional delegation is deadset against returning the church bells seized as war trophies over a century ago.

Wyoming officials reiterated their continuing opposition to returning the Bells of Balangiga amid reports that the war prizes were to be returned to the church where they were seized during the Philippine-American War. 

"These bells are memorials to American war dead and should not be transferred to the Philippines," the all-GOP delegation made up of U.S. Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, and U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, said in a joint statement August 12.

However, this time, the U.S. Defense Department appears intent on returning the church bells.

Defense Secretary James Mattis wrote members of Congress last weekend saying it was "in the national security interest of the United States" to return the bells.

Following Mattis' notification to Congress of intent to return the bells, the U.S. Embassy in Manila said in a statement last week, "No specific date has been identified for the return of the bells. We've received assurances that the bells will be returned to the Catholic Church and treated with the respect and honor they deserve."

Two of the  hurch bells are at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The third is with the U.S. Army in South Korea.

Requests for the return of the bells have been made by every Philippines administration since the term of President Fidel Ramos in the 1990s to no avail.

AYALA MUSEUM

A diorama shows the attack against the American soldiers.

U.S. Army soldiers took the bells following an attack on the island of Samar in which 48 American troops were killed in 1901. At that point, it was the worse defeat of the U.S. military in the Philippine-American War.

While Americans see the bells as war trophies and a memorial to the American soldiers who died in that forgotten war, Filipinos see the bells as a symbol of resistance to the war artrocities committed by U.S. troops during the Filipinos' war for independence.

The Philippines, a colony of Spain for 300 years, began fighting for independence in 1896. By 1898, Spain had been defeated everywhere in the Philippines except in their stronghold in Manila. The U.S. declared war against Spain in May of 1898. By the end of the year, in an agreement with the U.S., (perhaps out of pride), Spain surrendered to the U.S. rather than to the Filipino freedom fighters.

After Spain's defeat, the U.S. took possession of the Spanish colonies that included the Philippines, Cuba, Guam and Puerto Rico. With the aim to create its own far-flung empire, the U.S. refused to give up the Philippines to the Filipinos. The Filipino revolutionaries, who felt betrayed by their former ally, continued their war for independence, but this time, against the United States.

On Sept. 28, 1901, Company C of the 9th Infantry was sent to Balangiga to cut off supply lines to the freedom fighters. The unit was attacked by bolo-wielding Filipinos, with the ringing bells allegedly signaling the attack.

The church in Balangiga was rebuilt after being burnt to the ground by U.S. soldiers. The adjoiing belfrey
was constructed with hopes to house the bells..

In response, U.S. Brig. Gen. (Howling) Jacob H. Smith ordered that Balangiga and Samar be turned into a "howling wilderness" and allegedly said that any Filipino male above 10 years of age capable of bearing arms should be shot. The result was a 6-month long campaign resulting in the massacre of thousands of men, women and children.F

Smith later faced a court-martial with testimony coming from some of the men under his command. He was found guilty, admonished and forced to retire.

According to the Defense Department, nearly 4,200 U.S. troops died, mostly from disease, in the 1899-1902 Philippine-American War and the guerrilla resistance to U.S. colonial rule that continued into 1913. Facing superior firepower, the Philippines' lost the lives of 20,000 soldiers and over 100,000-250,000 civilians in the 3-year long conflict.

Two of the bells are on display at F.E. Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyoming. The third is with the U.S. Army's 9th Infantry Regiment in South Korea.

In a statement issued Friday (Aug. 17), the Philippines' Department of National Defense said the return of the bells would serve as a symbol of the United State’s sincerity and commitment to its long-term alliance with the Philippines.

“The return of the Balangiga Bells will be a strong indicator of the sincerity of the Americans in forging a lasting relationship with the Filipino people and truly symbolic of what their government has referred to in the past as an ironclad alliance between our two countries,” the DND said in the statement.

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