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Restoration of Balagiga
Bells must correct a misinformation of Philippine
History
August 11, 2003
We welcome the recent news reports on the possible
return to the Philippines of at least one of the
bells of Balangiga in Samar pursuant to a US Congress
Resolution that urged President Bush to give us
back the bells.
This is a significant historic gesture by the
United States which shows respect for our shared
history. However, to make this gesture genuinely
meaningful, the United States, through the US
Army, must also correct a serious misinformation
on the American colonization of the Philippines.
I was a member of the Philippine Senate when I
visited the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in
Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1990 to inspect the bells
of Balangiga. The inscription on the bronze marker
read: "These bells came from a church in
Balangiga, Samar, located in the Philippine Islands.
The ringing of these bells signaled the attack
of Bolo Tribesmen on Sunday morning, the 28th
of September, 1901, in which Company 'C' of the
Ninth US Infantry was massacred."
This inscription perpetrates a historic distortion
of American colonialism at that point in time
when it "suppressed an insurrection,"
for how could an attack of tribesmen wielding
bolos be anything but that, an "insurrection."
In fact, the organized guerilla assault was part
of an organized government network led by General
Vicente Lukban who was military governor of Leyte
and Samar, and some of the officers of the Revolutionary
Government led by Capt. Eugenio Daza, and Capt.
Valeriano Abanador, the town's police chief.
They were not, by any stretch of the imagination,
tribesmen, but were part of a rear guard force
attack of the Revolutionary Government organized
under by the Malolos Constitution under the authority
of President Emilio Aguinaldo.
The Balangiga attach was one of the bloodiest
clashes between the forces of a dying independent
republic, the first in Asia, being crushed by
the superior arms of an emerging world power.
This claimed the lives of 65 US soldiers and 28
Filipino guerillas.
The return of the bells must at least straighten
out that part of the Philippine struggle against
American colonialism. The US government will return
one bell but will leave the other in the Base.
The marker in Wyoming must be corrected to rectify
a gross error of history.
In coordination with the Balangiga Historical
Society and the National Historical Institute,
I brought this issue before the US government
through then US Ambassador to the Philippines
Richard Solomon.
When I visited the bells, I was met by F.E. Warren
Air Force Base commander Gen. Lance W. Lord who
informed me that the return of the bells could
be pursued with the Judge Advocate General's Office
(JAGO) and ultimately with the US State Department
in Washington, D.C.
With the support of President Ramos, we presented
our position to President Bill Clinton during
the APEC Conference held here in the country,
requesting for the return of the bells.
The ideals of both countries - the Filipino's
struggle for freedom and the US soldier's gallantry
- will not be diminished with the return of the
bells. Let the truth of this vital segment of
the Philippine-American war be revealed to our
people - to Filipinos and Americans - that these
are not relics obtained from battle but are symbols
of our organized resistance against foreign domination,
under a structured Republican government and a
democratic Constitution that was a first in Asia.
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