My serious advocacy pertaining to issues related to the Balangiga Attack of 1901 came quite by accident.

The time was July 1994. The province of Leyte was then undertaking feverish preparations for the 50th Leyte Landing anniversary on October 20 that year. The celebration was being drum-beaten as the Pacific equivalent of a similar grandiose commemoration in Normandy held the month before.

That July, the tentative program for the Leyte Landing anniversary was made available to the local media, and this was promptly disseminated to the regional audience. When I heard the names of the prospective awardees during the celebration, I noticed that something was amiss. The late Pres. Sergio Osmeña, the late diplomat Carlos P. Romulo, the late Col. Ruperto Kangleon, and retired Gen. Rafael Ileto were to be given Philippine Legion of Honor awards. But I did not hear the name of Valeriano Abello, the Boy Scout hero of the Leyte Landing, among the honorees.

Letter to the editor

I thought it was not yet too late to make some noise for the purpose of effecting changes in the program. I thereafter wrote a letter to the editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. In the text, I proposed some form of recognition for Abello, whose heroism had been habitually mentioned, although anonymously, by a succession of American speakers during previous commemorations.

Abello was the courageous solitary figure who appeared on the beach of Tolosa, Leyte, and signaled in semaphore to the US forces aboard ships offshore that civilian lives were endangered by their impending bombardment. After reaching the ships on a banca, he pointed out the Japanese artillery emplacements and defensive positions and helped spare the civilian settlements and population from destruction by American carpet bombing.

In addition, I proposed the return of the Bells of Balangiga by the US Government to the Philippines. I was referring to the relics now displayed near the flagpole at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. As a researcher of the Philippine- American War in the Leyte-Samar region, I was worried that the 50th Leyte Landing rites would seriously cover up the disappearing memory of suppressed events in our region almost a century ago. By invoking the bells, I thought I could remind our people about a more vicious but forgotten war that cost the lives of more Leyteños and Samareños than any other conflict in our local history.

At the same time, I fancied about a magnanimous commitment on the part of the US Government to return the Balangiga bells, which was more of an academic than popular issue at that time. As a gesture, I imagined this would resolve two basically contradicting issues of the American heritage in our region. One extreme was memorialized by the unreturned Bells of Balangiga; the other by the Leyte Landing of the Allied Forces under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1944.

My two proposals, all included in one letter, involved wishful thinking at best.

Now, not all my letters to the Inquirer get published. Until July 1994, I was lucky if one out of three saw print. Indeed, I would not have been surprised if the letter I mentioned went to the editor's wastebasket instead.

Abello

But then something big happened more than a week after I mailed my letter. The Inquirer scooped me out with a front-page feature of Valeriano Abello, written by two of the newspaper's topnotch writers, who came all the way to Tacloban to interview Abello and photograph him. I knew the tip came from me, but my letter was not found in the "Letters" section.

After another week of waiting, I gave up hope that my letter would be published.

Then I received this letter from a staff of the chairman of the Committee on Veterans Affairs of the Batasang Pambansa, explaining their effort to look into the case of Abello, whose application for war veteran status had been repeatedly turned down. Sometime later, I also received mail from a former roommate back in the university days. It contained a photocopy of my letter, entitled "Bells of Balangiga," which came out on a day a Philippine Airlines strike deprived Tacloban of its newspapers. Beside the article, the sender included the Japanese translation of my letter, which had been sent for printing in a Japanese publication.

What happened next was visible to the general public. My two modest proposals became sub-themes that could not be shaken off the media coverage of the 50th Leyte Landing celebration. The organizers eventually included Valeriano Abello among the awardees. And although he received only a Certificate of Recognition, Abello's human interest story got longer playing time on CNN than the actor who played Gen. MacArthur, who was shown tripping and falling into the water during the reenactment of the Leyte Landing.

Bells of Balangiga

As for the Bells of Balangiga, Director Morantte here told me a few weeks ago that the issue was also discussed among the American diplomats who graced the Leyte Landing rites in 1994. Anyway, publicity about the bells also got me in contact with other willing supporters, one of whom brought the issue directly to the US ambassador and his wife. Both reportedly mentioned the issue to then US Defense Secretary William Perry, who represented US Pres. Bill Clinton in the ceremonies.

Pres. Clinton visited the Philippines a month later, in November 1994, on his way to Indonesia to attend the APEC meeting. During his one-on-one talk with Pres. Fidel Ramos, he offered to return the Bells of Balangiga to the Philippines "in the spirit of fair play." However, I would be informed later by Roy Daza, president of the Eugenio Daza Foundation, whom Pres. Ramos sent to the US to follow up the matter of the bells, that Pres. Clinton's offer was considered "illegal" in some State Department circles.

Thus our quest for the return of the bells was stalled once again.

After 1994, the return of the Bells of Balangiga became a key component of my own advocacy positions. I kept my vigil through updates in the form of occasional letters about the Balangiga issue in the Inquirer.

New phase

Last December, the quest for the return of the bells entered a new phase. The advocacy started to go beyond a few noisy individuals writing provocative articles. Groups and entire organizations started to get involved. For instance, the University of the Philippines, and soon the Philippine Government, started to take active roles on the issue.

Early that month, while I was in Manila for another business, I got a call from the office of Dr. Malou Doronila, the UP vice-president for public affairs. They had just drafted the schedule of the 1998 UP Centennial Celebrations, and the commemoration of the so-called "Balangiga Massacre" was to be a component of this. Being the most identifiable advocate of the Balangiga issue in the UP, I was called for a briefing at Dr. Doronila's office.

During the briefing, I learned that the UP celebration intended to commemorate main events in the country's struggle for freedom and independence. Each month was to be organized around a theme. And to highlight the national character of the yearlong celebration, special efforts would be made to make this celebration "a movable feast," in which the special university-wide event for a particular month would be held in a different UP campus.

The result of the preparations for this UP centennial commemoration in Eastern Visayas is this symposium and tomorrow's Lakbay-Aral to Balangiga. This symposium, open to the general public, substitutes for the announced Balangiga round-table discussion, a much smaller and restricted forum which could not be held for some reasons. This activity could not have been held without the commitment of all-out support from Director Norma Morantte of the Region 8 office of the Department of Tourism. I would like us to give her a big hand in appreciation of her generosity.

I did much of the research for UP's centennial activity in Eastern Visayas. But it was Prof. Glenda Lynna Anne Tibe-Bonifacio who handled the organizational and administrative work with the help of members of the local centennial committee. And I am convinced that she did her job very well. Let us also give her and the members of the local centennial committee a big hand.

Pres. Ramos’ effort

At about the same time last December, Pres. Ramos broached the idea of sharing the two Bells of Balangiga in Wyoming to a visiting US senator. Pres. Ramos' turn-around was a welcome development for our stalled effort. Back in September 1994, while he was overseeing the preparations for the 50th Leyte Landing anniversary, the president was asked about the bells, then a hot issue, during a press conference. He admonished the local media by saying something like: "Let us forget the bells (and what they stand for) and look to the future."

Three years later, Pres. Ramos had a change of heart and moved to the forefront of yet another effort to have the Bells of Balangiga returned to the country.

The president eventually failed to have the bells returned in time for the centennial of the declaration of Philippine Independence last June 12. But the intense publicity around his high profile effort succeeded in informing the nation about a glorious moment in our history, which occurred in an obscure town in southern part of Samar in September 1901.

Reason for failure

The president's failure could be attributed to the fact that Americans and Filipinos have diverse and often contradictory interpretations of what Balangiga stands for. The Americans "have analyzed it as a dastardly, cowardly act carried out against naïve and kindly Americans" doing pacification work. The Filipinos view the Balangiga attack as a "courageous uprising against a cruel, foreign oppressor." (Quoted text taken from Balangiga website article about "What went wrong at Balangiga?") Sadly, most of these self-righteous interpretations were premised on crucial myths and misconceptions about what really happened in Balangiga almost a century ago.

Only a fuller understanding of what went wrong in Balangiga, of the how's and the why’s, before assigning specific blame in both the Filipino and American sides, can hopefully reconcile the presently conflicting views.

Orders were orders

At its most basic, the Balangiga event was about people - of living and interacting people - composed of American soldiers belonging to Company C of the Ninth US Infantry Regiment and Balangiga residents, who had to deal with each other in wartime circumstances. Amidst all these, and still unknown to most of us, were some stories of formed friendships between American soldiers and Balangigan-ons, which had to be sacrificed because, at the crucial hour, orders were orders and had to be followed.

For instance, Capitan Valeriano Abanador, the overall leader of the plot against the Americans in Balangiga, was known to have regretted the fact that his chessboard opponent in the American side, the company surgeon Major Richard Sill Griswold, was killed during the attack.

Several American soldiers were also spared by native attackers at the onset of the attack. An example was Corporal Taylor B. Hickman. Unarmed and standing on the corridor of the convent, he was bypassed by attackers from Lawaan who stormed and killed the officers in their quarters. Was Hickman a friend of this group of fighters?

Sergeant Frank Betron was informed about an impending attack, perhaps cryptically, by a Filipino friend. He reported this to his higher officers but was ignored. In the aftermath of the attack, Sgt. Betron, the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer, though wounded himself, took command of the remnants of his ill-fated company during the American survivors’ retreat and daring escape aboard native bancas toward their headquarters in Basey.

Sgt. Betron perhaps made the earliest political statement about how Americans and Filipinos should deal with the Balangiga event. He did not share his government’s vengeful hatred of the Filipinos after the incident. Instead, he married a Filipina and settled in the Philippines after his discharge from the US Army. Bob Couttie and I exerted effort to contact his descendants in Agusan del Norte. Had we succeeded, one of them might have been with us here in this symposium.

Fight for honor

Shamed to subjugation by the confiscation or destruction of their food stocks and the continued detention of some 80 of their men-folk, the Balangigan-ons rose up and succeeded in fighting for their honor and concept of common good. And the surviving American soldiers, against overwhelming odds, fought back to salvage what was left of America's honor in Balangiga after all their officers had been killed.

Both the Filipino attackers and the American soldiers displayed extraordinary courage and gallantry during the fighting on September 28, 1901. They showed the marks of heroes for their respective causes that day.

Perhaps it is for this honorable conduct that the Balangiga episode must be separated from the subsequent American retaliation under the command of Brig. Gen. Jacob Smith. Smith's "kill and burn" policy intended to reduce Samar into "a howling wilderness" and avenge for the American dead in Balangiga was plain and simple sinking to savagery, commented Major Daniel Tarter, a former commander of the same company that was attacked in Balangiga.

Elusive Medal of Honor

Ironically, two American Marine officers were awarded Congressional Medals of Honor for their roles during the one-sided savagery operations in Samar. I refer to Captain Bears and Captain Porter, two young officers under Major Littleton Waller, who led the American attack during the Battle of Sohoton in November 1901. Their feat was preceded by wanton burning of houses, destruction of native boats and bancas, burning of food and abaca stocks, in addition to the killing and capturing of some civilians in the hinterlands of Basey. Faced with token opposition from surprised native defenders, the Marine victory in Sohoton looked like an over-kill than a real fight. Still the two officers got their medals.

In contrast, the Congressional Medal of Honor continues to elude the American survivors in Balangiga, especially those who showed gallantry and courage under the most trying circumstances. One candidate is Private Adolph Gamlin, Ms. Jean Wall-Fe’s father.

Pvt. Gamlin was the first American soldier to be attacked in Balangiga. As the guard on duty near the municipal building, he was struck down from behind with the butt of his own rifle by Valeriano Abanador, who had just given the signal to start the attack. Gamlin survived by jamming a native hat to stop the bleeding from his severely wounded head and fought his way back to his quarters, where he got hold of a gun . He fitted the description of Pedro Duran, another native plotter, about an American soldier in the hospital, heavily wounded and thought to have died, who fired shots into the crowd of attackers. Gamlin and another soldier who first fought off the attackers with his mess kit, presumably Sergeant George F. Markley, were credited with the death of 14 Filipinos in the plaza and the forced call for retreat by Abanador.

Another candidate is Sgt. Betron, whose feat I had mentioned earlier.

Three attempts were made in the 1930s to consider granting the Congressional Medal of Honor to the American survivors in Balangiga. But all these efforts did not prosper. In the light of new research findings, perhaps another attempt should be made on their behalf. But this proposal would be tantamount to interference in another country’s affair.

However, this type of neglect or omission on the part of the US Government also characterizes the Filipino side. Until now, the people of Balangiga have yet to receive proper honors from the Philippine Government for their forebears' feat in 1901. Certainly, the legislation of the Balangiga Encounter Day a decade ago was insufficient as a form of recognition.

At present, the Philippine Government occasionally, but very rarely, awards the Medal of Valor. This is usually given to Filipino soldiers who fight against fellow Filipinos who do not share the mainstream political ideology. This is understandable, given the tradition of this award. Among the first Medals of Valor awarded by the US colonial government in the Philippines were a bunch given to a group of Leyteño recruits to the Philippine Constabulary early this century. These constabulary recruits had been surrounded and harassed Filipino guerrillas in their detachment somewhere in western Leyte while their American officer was out. They spurned appeals of racial brotherhood during the siege and the opportunity to lay down their arms by the attackers during a parley. They chose to fight it out until they had exhausted their ammunitions. Without the means to fight, they slipped unnoticed out of their camp in the middle of the night. The camp was run over by the guerrillas and burned. Still these constables were later given Medals of Valor for their loyalty to the American cause, which was equated with valor.

Surely, the Medal of Valor as it is does not provide fitting recognition for the historical fighters from Balangiga. Perhaps a Philippine version of the US Congressional Medal of Honor, one with stringent nationalist criteria, is proper in this regard.

Balangiga in the Internet

Last December was also the time the Balangiga debate exploded in the Internet. While learning the mechanics of Net-surfing during the Christmas break, I came across one forum on the Balangiga Massacre. I typed in my two-cents' worth of opinion on the issue with my nickname and e-mail address for identity.

Soon the debate became a one-on-one between Bob Couttie and myself. While the rest of the world were enjoying Christmas and New Year in care-free and less intellectual pursuits, both of us engaged in a pitched battle of opinions about the Balangiga event and over the validity and reliability of our respective sources and documents. Sometimes we exchanged two sets of opinions in a single day.

Bob and I debated purely on Balangiga-related issues. We never engaged in personal attacks against each other, which is a norm in other forums. But apart from answering side-queries from a descendant of an American survivor in Balangiga and from a staff of the US Library of Congress, we also had to deal with hecklers who wish to engage in flame wars.

I reckon that Bob and I reached a standoff in our open debate. Somehow, we agreed to just exchange opinions and ideas by e-mail, and not in a general forum where we have to appear in our best writing elements. The result was a friendly cross-cultural collaboration, the outcome of which has radically expanded the possibilities of understanding the Balangiga event from an informed perspective. Yesterday, after reams of opinion exchanges and personal communications, Bob Couttie and I met for the first time.

Last January, Bob put up the Balangiga website in the Internet. We thereafter continued our open discussion, this time in a friendly tone, in its bulletin board. The website's original announcement was about the forthcoming Balangiga movie project. Today, this website offers the most comprehensive library of literature, references, and basic data related to the Balangiga event. It has also opened up avenues for participatory research about Balangiga. The US Library of Congress and American politicians refer to this website for the latest information about the Balangiga issue.

Resolution to controversies

Bob and I have also engaged in hypothesis-testing exchanges to clarify details about what really occurred in Balangiga in 1901. In the process, we were able to resolve some controversial issues surrounding the Balangiga event over the past few months. The following were some of them:

1. The Filipinos’ claim that only nine or seven American soldiers were seen paddling away from Balangiga, of whom two eventually survived, is indefensible. The American estimate of more than 20 survivors is more or less correct. Of course, two American survivors reached Leyte from Balangiga, but this did not mean they were the only ones who survived. There were others, unaccounted by folklore, who reached Basey. They included Pvt. Gamlin, Sgt. Betron, and Pvt. Thomas Qula, the other survivor aside from Sgt. Betron who also married a Filipina and believed to have settled in the Philippines.

2. Information reaching US Pres. Theodore Roosevelt at that time mentioned that the American dead in Balangiga were "mutilated and treated with indescribable indignities." This is a claim that Filipinos can best snub or ignore. Our strong belief in kalag and the revenge of the human soul deter us from physically harming a dead person’s corpse. The bolo wounds on the American dead in Balangiga were presumably inflicted during actual fighting, and not after they were killed.

3. The day-and-date combination for the Balangiga attack was Sunday, September 28,1901. I got a large following for the belief that the attack occurred on Sunday, September 29, 1901. After all, this belief can be supported by the use of a computer or the perpetual calendar in reconstructing the year 1901. Also, Pedro Duran’s account mentioned that the attack occurred on the Feast Day of St. Michael Archangel, which is September 29.

However, Bob argued that the American communication traffic in the aftermath of the attack suggested that it occurred on September 28.

This issue was resolved by the reference to Lt. Edward Bumpus’ letter to his father, dated Sunday, September 21, 1901. In this letter, Bumpus told his father about his daily routines in Balangiga. Of course, the next Sunday was dated September 28.

4. The Asiaweek magazine came out with a feature about the two Bells of Balangiga in Wyoming last January. Right away, the Associated Press, quoting David Perrine, a historian of the Ninth US Infantry Regiment, mentioned about a "third Balangiga bell" in the possession of US troops now stationed in Korea. Almost simultaneously, Major Tarter raised questions about the authenticity of the bells in Wyoming and opined that it is time for the bell or bells of Balangiga to go home to the Philippines.

I alerted Bob about this development. I told him that, on closer look, I found the bell photographed with some of the American survivors in Balangiga different from any of the two Wyoming bells. I thought the real bell of Balangiga is the "third bell," the one always in the possession of the Ninth US Infantry, now stationed in Korea. I had written about this inference in a letter that was published in the Inquirer.

Careful rereading of Pvt. Gamlin’s and Pedro Duran’s accounts also shows that only one bell was rung to signal the attack on the American garrison in Balangiga. Even Daza’s account mentioned only one bell taken by the Americans from Balangiga. It thus seemed like Balangiga only had one church bell at that time.

Perhaps the real bell of Balangiga is the one in Korea. But now, we still continue to cast furtive glances at the relics in Wyoming.

There were other controversies that Bob and I had resolved during our exchanges of communication. Hopefully, these shall surface either in the documentary or the movie about Balangiga.

Conclusion

In closing, I must comment that this symposium marks a confluence of Balangiga-related advocacy positions by different individuals, groups and organizations. So far, we have shown that we can all reconcile our respective goals and interests pertaining to a common issue without necessarily replicating the bloody battle fought in Balangiga on Sunday morning, the 28th day of September, 1901.

Thank you and may you have a good day.

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