WARREN AIR FORCE BASE: US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday formally returned church bells to the Philippines that were taken as war trophies over a century ago following gruesome clashes, seeking to close a contentious chapter in the two allies’ shared history.
The decision to return the “Bells of Balangiga” to the Philippines ends a decades-long quest by Manila, including by President Rodrigo Duterte, and is expected to bolster US-Philippines’ relations.
But it has upset some US veterans and Wyoming’s delegation to the US Congress, which uniformly opposed returning bells that were a memorial to the 45 US soldiers who were killed during a surprise attack on September 28, 1901, in the central town of Balangiga.
Two of the three bells have been on display at FE Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. The third bell is at a US Army museum in South Korea.
Mattis, speaking at a ceremony at the air force base attended by the Philippines ambassador to the United States, said the Philippines has proven itself as a great US ally in conflicts over the century since that clash. He said the sacrifices of US forces would not be forgotten. “To those who fear we lose something by returning these bells, please hear me when I say: Bells mark time, but courage is timeless,” Mattis said. “It does not fade in history’s dimly lit corridors.”
In Manila, the Philippines’ foreign affairs department cheered the move.
“Today is a time of solemn remembrance as we pay tribute to all those who gave up their lives during the Filipino-American War,” it said.
Wyoming’s Congressional delegation, which did not attend the ceremony, issued a terse statement.
“We continue to oppose any efforts by the Administration to move the Bells to the Philippines without the support of Wyoming’s veterans community,” Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso and Representative Liz Cheney said in a joint statement.
All three bells will be restored and handed over to the Philippines as early as December, said Joe Felter, deputy assistant secretary of defence for South and Southeast Asia.
The 1901 attack in Balangiga, on the Filipino island of Samar, was seen as perhaps the worst routing of US soldiers since the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, also known as Custer’s Last Stand. According to historians, one or more of the church bells were rung to signal the attack in Balangiga. — Reuters
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