Legarda, Pimentel reiterate call for US to return Balanginga bells

Senators Loren Legarda and Aquilino Pimentel Jr. aired yesterday separate calls for the return of the historic Balangiga Bells of Samar from the United States.

"The Balangiga Bells rightfully belong to the Balangiga town in Samar and to the Filipino nation. They stand as a symbol of our aspiration to be free and should not be treated as a military trophy," she declared.

She said it is high time that the US, a staunch ally of the Philippines in World War II and in the new war against terrorism, gives back to the Philippines the bells, which have remained enshrined at the Trophy Park of Warren air force base in Wyoming.

The bells were shipped out of Samar and into the United States 101 years ago by occupying American troops.

The American troops massacred an estimated 50,000 Filipino civilians from October 1901 to March 1902 after Filipino patriots in Balangiga rose in arms against American occupation forces on Sept. 28, 1901. They then shipped the bells to Wyoming as "trophy."

"Time has all but healed the pain of a most savage conflict between two nations that have become the best of friends since the bells should now be returned to Balangiga to serve as a memorial to the thousands of Filipinos ordered killed in retribution by an American general gone mad," Legarda said.

She was referring to Brig. Gen. Jacob Smith, who ordered a special battalion of IS Marines to reduce Samar into a "howling wilderness" in revenge for the "worst single defeat" of the US military in the Philippines.

Smith was merely forced to retire from the military after court-martial proceedings were instituted for his brutal Samar campaign.

Pimentel also appealed to the US government to heed the Filipino nation’s request for the return of the Balangiga Bells.

The three bells, according to Pimentel, bear the emblem of the Franciscan order and dates of their casting: 1853, 1889 and 1896.

Pimentel said the bells must be returned because of their ecclesiastical nature, as he cited practices from the Renaissance exempting sacred objects from the spoils of war.

"There is also a United Nations resolution dated Nov. 2, 1993 calling for the return of cultural property by the countries in which it is found, to the countries of origin," he added. — Efren Danao, Ricky Bautista