MEMBERS of the House of Representatives welcomed the reported plan of the US Defense Department to return the historic Balangiga bells to the Philippines.
“We welcome the endorsement of the US Secretary of Defense for the return of the Balangiga Bells. They rightfully belong to us as a symbol of freedom and justice,” Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone said.
Earlier, Evardone filed a resolution for the recovery of the bells for the 127th anniversary of the Balangiga massacre on Sept. 28.
“The return will… finally erase the remaining irritant or vestiges of the Philippine-American War,” he said.
The news agency Reuter earlier reported that US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has already notified the Houe of Representatives of plans to return the bells to the Philippines.
But the turnover date has not been determined.
The Balangiga bells were church bells taken by the US Army from the town church of Balangiga, Eastern Samar, as war trophies after reprisals for the Balangiga massacre in 1901.
Northern Samar Rep. Raul Daza said he is hoping the plan to return the bells is “for real.”
“If the bells are indeed returned to us, it would finally, rectify a grievous historical wrong inflicted by the Americans not only on the Samareños but…on the Filipino nation,” he said.
He said the bells are an eloquent symbol of the courage and patriotism of the Filipino to remind the present generation that they should resist foreign domination in any form.
On the other hand, Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate said the US Defense Department should “walk the talk” and issue an apology for the atrocities they committed.
“These bells are emblematic of the continuing injustice committed against our country and people in the name of the hegemonic and imperialist greed of America,” he said.
He said the US must not give Filipinos false hope.
“We have long been asking for the Balangiga bells’ return but until now, [they have not been returned],” he said.
American forces took three bells from the Catholic church of Balangiga town on the eastern island of Samar in 1901 as war booty in what historians said was a particularly brutal military operation in the new US colony.
President Rodrigo Duterte and previous Philippine governments had urged Washington to return the bells, with the president often raising the issue in his anti-American tirades as he builds closer ties with China and Russia.
The US had initially given a non-committal response to Duterte’s demands but on Sunday said it would return the bells.
“The Secretary of Defense has notified Congress that the Department (of Defense) intends to return the Bells of Balangiga to the Philippines,” said Molly Koscina, spokeswoman for the US embassy in Manila.
“We’ve received assurances that the bells will be returned to the Catholic Church and treated with the respect and honor they deserve,” she added, saying there was no date scheduled for the move.
Duterte’s spokesman welcomed the announcement.
Two of the bells are installed at a memorial for US war dead in the state of Wyoming, while the third is with US forces in South Korea.
Some US politicians oppose the dismantling of the memorial, and the issue had sparked an emotional response from the descendants of American soldiers who served in the Philippine campaign.
The Philippines, a Spanish colony for centuries, was ceded to the United States in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War. The country gained independence from the US in 1946.
The brutal Samar campaign was launched about a month after Filipino rebels killed 34 US troops in Balangiga on Sept. 28, 1901, according to a US Army War College research paper.
Seven other American soldiers perished during the escape from Balangiga, and US reinforcements razed the town the day after, it added.
Then-Philippine president Fidel Ramos first sought but failed to recover the bells during a 1998 Washington trip.
Duterte, who took office in mid-2016, demanded the return of the bells during his State of the Nation address last year: “Give us back those Balangiga bells. They are not yours. They are ours. They belong to the Philippines. They are part of our national heritage.” With AFP
