On Tuesday, a giant U.S. Air Force cargo aircraft brought the Bells of Balangiga back to the Philippine capital in a poignant ceremony that saw U.S. defense officials and the American ambassador to Manila return the war relics 117 years after they were seized. BY the time this column comes out, the Balangiga Bells would have already completed its journey from the time it became a symbol of Filipino bravery and resistance against foreign occupation, to be­ing taken as war booty by Ameri­can soldiers in 1901, to finally re­turning to Philippine soil. Then during his second State of the Nation Address, President Duterte demanded from the United States the return of the bells of Balangiga which their troops appropriated as spoils of war. Instead, the President will attend the program for the repatriation of the three bells (the two removed from Wyoming and one removed from South Korea) to town officials of Balangiga, Eastern Samar on Saturday. Hundreds of Filipino villagers in 1901, armed with bolos and disguised as women, used one of Balangiga town’s church bells to signal the start of a massive attack that wrought one of the bloodiest single-battle losses of American occupation forces in the Philippines.
The Balangiga bells, stolen during the massacre in Balangiga in 1901 during the Philippine–American War, were returned to the Philippines after 117 years under the possession of the United States.