(Features) Townsfolk seeks return of Balangiga Bells

BALANGIGA, Eastern Samar, Sept. 27 (PNA) –- After 115 years, the townspeople here still cry for the return of the bells to the town, which was taken by the American soldiers as war booty during the encounter which others refer to as Balangiga Massacre.

Fe Campanero, head of the local water district, said that the Americans have no right to get the bells as war booty.

Campanero is the surviving niece of Vicente Candilosas, one of the Filipinos who fought in Balangiga Encounter. Candilosas is the first cousin of her grandfather Pedro Salazar Campanero. "It was clear that they lost."

The lessons of the past still resonates with the Filipino people especially the people of Balangiga. After the smoke of war has cleared, the town was turned into a howling wilderness.

Even President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, in his recent speech before the Philippine Air Force, recalled the mass killings of Filipinos by the American soldiers in Balangiga. This is one of the American’s brutalities against the Filipinos, according to him.

Alicia Ablay Valdenor, 67, one of the living descendants of Filipino soldier Capt. Valeriano Abanador said the return of the bells is significant. "It is a testament of the rich heritage, bravery and culture of the Filipinos."

The town’s parish priest Fr. Serafin Tybaco, Jr. said it is important for the bells to be returned because that is the property of the church. It took years for the people of Balangiga to purchase the bells.

This sleepy 4th class town in Eastern Samar will commemorate the 115th Balangiga Encounter Day, on Wednesday, which is also the town’s feast day.

As historians said, at the break of dawn on Sept. 28, 1901, a group of men were parading at the town plaza going to the church. They were wearing women’s clothes so that the American soldiers would not detect there were no more real women in the town.

The "real" women together with the children, were already evacuated to the mountains.

The other men were carrying caskets and when asked, they told the sentries "El Cholera", as there was cholera epidemic and some children died of it. Unknown to the soldiers, the other coffins contained sharp bolos and canes.

As the bells tolled, the Filipino revolutionaries attacked the American officers and soldiers at the convent and tents in the public plaza while eating their breakfast leaving them helpless and unable to get their rifles.

They were overpowered by the feisty and aggrieved Filipinos using only native weapons the bolos, canes, bows and arrows.

The attacked was well-planned led by Eugenio Daza assisted by president Pedro Abayan (town Mayor in the current local government heirarchy). Daza was considered the brains behind the Balangiga Encounter Day.

The Filipinos that served the Americans made sure that they were given tuba (native wine extracted from coconut) that they were drunk every night before the attack.

“The Americans were outsmarted by the uneducated Filipinos,” Campanero added.

To think, these soldiers were well-trained and battle tested with three campaign medals earned in Cuba in 1898, in Luzon in 1900 and during the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, according to Campanero.

While it was a defeat for the United States, it was one of the bravest acts of the Filipinos – the little brown brothers, as Americans would love to call the locals.

As a reprisal, Gen. Jacob Smith ordered to turn to the town as a howling wilderness. Any Filipino male above ten years of age capable of bearing arms be shot dead. They burned and annihilated the town.

As a war trophy, the American soldiers took with them the church bells.

There were three church bells taken from the burned church after the reprisal on Sept. 29, 1901.

One church bell is in the possession of the 9th Infantry Regiment at Camp Cloud, South Korea.

The two bronze bells are on a former base of the 11th Infantry Regiment at F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenee, Wyoming. A 400-year old British Falcon cannon in the plaza was also taken by the soldiers.

Since 1990s, there are several attempts to return the bells to the country by both Filipino and US lawmakers, but until this year, the bells are still under US government’s control.

Today, a monument in the town’s public plaza immortalizes the Balangiga Encounter Day by National Artist Napoleon Abueva. The monument is depicting the surprise attack by Filipino revolutionaries on American colonial forces. (PNA)
JMC/SQM/VICKY C. ARNAIZ/EGR