IN THE KNOW: Balangiga bells

The Bells of Balangiga at the former base of the 11th Infantry Regiment at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. FILE PHOTO

Forty-eight American soldiers were killed when Filipino guerrillas armed with bolos attacked a US garrison in the town of Balangiga on the island of Samar on Sept. 28, 1901.

Retaliation was quick and brutal. American soldiers were ordered to murder all Samareños aged 10 and older, torch houses, seize crops and shoot working animals, turning the entire fishing village into a “howling wilderness.”

After the massacre, the Americans took with them three church bells as war trophies. Based on historical accounts, the ringing of the bells of Balangiga’s church served as the signal for the Filipino revolutionaries’ offensive.

Two Balangiga bells are said to be at F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The 9th US Infantry Regiment found a third Balangiga bell in the late 1990s at its base in South Korea.

Since the Ramos administration in the 1990s, the Philippine government, Senate and the Catholic Church have been asking the US government to return the bells.

Two resolutions were filed in the US Congress in 2005 and 2006 urging the US president to authorize the return of the bells to the Philippines, but the measures fizzled.

In his State of the Nation Address on Monday, President Duterte again asked Washington to return the bells. —Inquirer Research