The bells were taken not as war booty, but merely to prevent the Filipinos from melting and converting the bronze bells into weapons, noted American military veterans who have long been working for the return of the bells to the Philippines.
In the House last Wednesday, congressmen passed a resolution supporting Pres. Duterte’s appeal for the US government to return three of the Balangiga church bells. Everdone declared the bells as “spoils of war.”
Among the US veterans seeking the return of the bells is Dennis Wright, now president of the Peregrine International in this Freeport. Only last May, Wright had successfully negotiated for the return of yet another bell weighing 400 kilos and made from an alloy of gold, silver and copper to the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Bauang, La Union. This bell was also taken by the Americans in 1901.
Wright and another US military veteran Dan McKinnon have been negotiating for the return of two of the Balangiga bells which are displayed at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming where some sectors regard them as honoring American soldiers who died in the Filipino-American War and are against their return to the Philippines.
The third of the three Balangiga bells is at the 9th Infantry Regiment at Camp Red Cloud at the US military base in South Korea. The three bells used to hang from the belfry of the Church of San Lorenzo de Martir in Balangiga, Samar, but were carted off by the Americans after the infamous massacre of Filipino males there in retaliation for their previous attacks on Americans during the Filipino-American war in 1901.
Wright and McKinnon recently went to Warren air base in Wyoming where they saw for themselves the two Balangiga bells in their eff ort to have them brought back to the Philippines.
Wright provided Punto! with McKinnon’s 91-page research titled “The Bells of Balangiga” indicating that the bells were not taken as spoils of war.
“When men of the 11th Infantry left Balangiga on 18 October, 1901 for Tacloban, they did not take three bronze church bells as souvenirs or for the purpose of the often misused word ‘war booty.’ They just took the bronze away from the enemy side because they were supposed to,” McKinnon wrote.
Weaponry
He noted that “the foundries of the Philippines had a history of turning bells into weapons, especially ‘lantakas’, the cannon of the islands of the archipelago, and weapons into bells. During the insurrections against the Spanish, churches would be forced to, or sometimes voluntarily, give up bronze bells to be melted down for weapons.”
He also noted that “(Emilio) Aguinaldo commended the skills of a comrade who could melt bells into guns and bayonets.”
Amid this clarifi cation, US veterans led by Wright and McKinnon have continued to seek the return of the Balangiga bells.
In an email to Punto, Wright said he and other Americans from the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 2485 have issued a resolution approved by VFW Department of Pacific Areas, seeking the return of the Balangiga bells.
Wright also showed letters written by his compatriots to various US authorities seeking the return of the Balangiga bells.
Letters
One letter was from lawyer Stan Hathaway dated March 13, 1998 and addressed to Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas. It mentioned having participated in a Mass presided by Bishop Hart of the Catholic Diocese of Wyoming who told then Philippine ambassador to US Raul Rabe that “the bells of Balangiga were not a trophy of war but a religious symbol to the people of the Philippines.
Hathaway appealed to the senator to return the bells to the Philippines “so that we can improve the friendship with the Philippines which was once a protectorate of the United States, and help them celebrate their 100th birthday as a free nation.” Philippine Independence centennial anniversary was in 1998.
Even before Duterte’s SONA, yet another letter from Samantha Hoffman of Traverse City, Michigan was sent to Sen. Gary Peters in Washington DC. She identified herself as cousin of Private Robert Booth who was part of the US military in the Philippines in 1901.
Hoffman noted that “Wyoming has fought to keep these bells despite having no relationship to them nor to the Balangiga encounter.”
“The bells should go home (to the Philippines). Church bells as Warren Air Force Base do not honor my cousin nor make up for his loss,” she said.
Yet another letter from Spike Nasmyth of VFW Post 2485 addressed to Sen. John McCain III said “the bells of San Lorenzo (Balangiga) should never have been taken in the first place. It was in violation of General Order 100. Bells are not war booty; they belong in a church to call the faithful to worship.”
