"Now, Australia. The felicitous event that has served to bring the Philippines and Australia even closer together can be summed up by one name—Catriona."
It would not be right if the year 2018 were allowed to slip into history without mention being made of two events, different in character and attendant circumstance that had the effect of bringing closer together the Philippines and two of its best friends in the world. The two friends are the U.S. and Australia.
First, the U.S. The felicitous event involving our most important geopolitical and economic partners—all claims of pivot-to-China advocates to the country notwithstanding—was the return, at year-end, of the three bells of the San Lorenzo de Martini Church of Balangiga, Eastern Samar. The bells were taken away by the U.S. Army after the September 27, 1901 encounter between the Independence fighters of the Samar town and a company of American soldiers: Two of the bells were placed on display at a U.S. Armed Forces base in the state of Wyoming and the third was brought by the U.S. Army to a base in South Korea. The reprisal ordered by the commanding general for the Samar sector was severe: Balangiga was to be turned into a “howling wilderness,” with no Filipino male ten years old and above left alive.
Relations between this country and its former colonial master were close before the grant of Philippine independence in July 1946, and they have remained close since then. Those relations have spanned geopolitics, economics, culture and last but not lease, immigration. Until 1991 the U.S. maintained, by virtue of the Philippine-U.S. Bases Agreement, two large bases and several smaller military facilities in this country.
But through the years—117 years to be exact—the fact of U.S. custody of the Balangiga bells has remained a painful thorn in the side of the Philippines. The U.S. has been a generous partner and ally—military aid, development assistance, and investments—but the generosity has only dulled, but not removed, the pain from the memory of the carting away of Balangiga’s church bells. As long as the bells were not returned, Philippine-American relations would never be 100 percent right.
A succession of Philippine presidents worked hard and lobbied for the return of the Balangiga bells. The latest to do so was Rodrigo Duterte, who mentioned it in one of his State of the Nation Addresses. Whether the administration of President Donald Trump wanted to make a strategic gesture in the face of the Duterte administration’s so-called pivot to China,’ we don’t know. What we do know is that the Trump administration decided to do right—at long last—by the Philippines.
Let there be no mistake about it. The return of Balangiga bells, after 117 long years, has been a tremendous shot in the arm for Philippine-American relation. No high-powered public’s relations campaign can ever achieve what this one U.S. government act has done for those relations. An enormous thorn in the side of the Philippines has been removed.
There has been closure of the Philippine-American what would that was there for over a century.
Now, Australia. The felicitous event that has served to bring the Philippines and Australia even closer together can be summed up by one name—Catriona. At the close of 2018, Catriona Magnayon Gray was crowned the 2019 Miss Universe.
Australia and the Philippines have always been staunch friends and allies, and Australia has been one of this country’s top three sources of development assistance. It has been most welcoming and hospitable to Filipino immigrants.
But the magnitude of the Filipino goodwill that Australia has earned over the decades has been mostly augmented by the recognition given by the Miss Universe judges to the gorgeous lass born to an Australian father and a Bicolana mother. The fact that a Queensland newspaper thinks that Catriona Gray should be called Miss Queensland is a measure of the good that she has done for Philippine-Australian relations.
The two events discussed here are the kinds of things that bring close nations even closer together.