The 1863 bell of Balangiga in Wyoming.


Balangiga bells update


By Rolando O. Borrinaga


(Published under the column Leyte-Samar Front in The Freeman (Cebu), April 12, 1998.)


It seems the Department of Foreign Affairs had signed away part of the country's sovereignty so that the "Bells of Balangiga" can be returned to the Philippines in time for the June 12 centennial celebration.

The clue for this suspicion was revealed last Feb. 10, the day the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement was signed. An unnamed ranking official of DFA made a slip by leaking the news that the Wyoming legislature had already approved the return of "one or both" historic bells, now displayed at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base.

The premature announcement was borne out by subsequent developments. But it was made about a week before the Wyoming Senate formally met in session of Feb. 16, and approved the resolution to return an original and a replica of the two "Bells of Balangiga" in their territory.

Shrouded in secrecy like the Pact of Biak-na-Bato proceedings a century ago, the VFA was signed with "consummate timing" in mind, noted an editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. With the hoopla brought about by presidentiables filing their certificates of candidacy, the announcement about the bells became anti-climactic and unnecessary as a smokescreen.

Still, it was made.

However, recent findings chronicled in the Balangiga website in the Internet seem to suggest that not one of the two "Bells of Balangiga" in Wyoming was actually rung during the attack that nearly wiped out Company C of the U.S. Ninth Infantry Regiment stationed in Balangiga, Eastern Samar, on Sept. 28, 1901. These two bells were brought to the former Fort Russell by soldiers of the U.S. Eleventh Infantry Regiment, who had their headquarters in Tacloban, Leyte. Though the relics were probably shipped out as "War Trophies from Balangiga, P.I.," they were perhaps looted from other places in Samar, or even from Leyte.

The "third Balangiga bell," the relic always in the possession of the U.S. Ninth Infantry Regiment now stationed in Korea, is presumably the real bell taken from Balangiga. After it became news in January, I took a closer look at an extant photo of the bell taken together with 15 alleged American survivors of the Balangiga massacre and a Filipino boy. Then I alerted Bob Couttie, the administator of the Balangiga website, about my finding. He clarified later that the picture included only 12 soldiers of Company C who actually survived in Balangiga. One soldier in the picture was out of Balangiga during the attack, and two others were color guards borrowed from another unit.

Anyway, the bell in the photo with the survivors did not look like any of the two "Bells of Balangiga" displayed in Wyoming for decades.

The Balangiga website shows comparative photos and describes the physical contrasts in two bells (one in Wyoming, the other photographed with the survivors) apparently cast by the same manufacturer. It also provides the inscriptions on the two Wyoming bells.

David Perrine, a West Point graduate who is an expert on the Company C massacre, divulged the existence of the "third Balangiga bell" in Korea last January. His revelation, which was separately affirmed by Major Daniel N. Tarter, former commander of Company C, took everybody by surprise.

Contrary to the claims of the war veterans in Wyoming, none of the members of Company C were from that state. The soldiers of this company were shipped out of Madison Barracks in New York in 1899 and returned to this base with their Balangiga bell in 1902. Their bell followed a different route in reaching the U.S.

In the light of recent findings, the Philippine and US government panels allegedly formed to negotiate the return of the Balangiga bells to the country should focus on the bell in Korea. After all, U.S. official resolutions on the issue (including House Bill No. 212 now pending in the U.S. Congress) only allow for the return of one bell. We might as well get the real one.



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