SIDE TRIP 35: For whom the bell tolls

A few years back, ask me where Balangiga is and you would most probably get a blank look. But a hundred years ago, this little-known coastal town in Eastern Samar was the site of one the United States’ worst single defeats in its entire history. In one of the bravest maneuvers in the Philippine-American War in the early 1900s, Balangiga guerillas armed only with bolos attacked the garrison and killed more than 50 of the 78 American soldiers stationed there. The church bells were used to signal the start of the attack which has since been dubbed the “Balangiga Massacre”.

Of course the real massacre was not the attack itself but the subsequent brutal retaliation by American troops that resulted in the killing of thousands of Filipinos in Samar. Perhaps one of the most famous quotes in war history was the order by an American general to “Kill everyone over ten!” The same general was said to have ordered his men “I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn the better it will please me.”

After the burning of Samar, the American soldiers took the bells from the Church and brought them back to the US as war trophy. To this day, the Balangiga Bells remain at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. The calls for their return to the Philippines have fallen largely on deaf ears.

Today Balangiga town is as sleepy as it must have been a hundred years back. Decrepit nipa houses line the river bank, mute testaments to the poverty that is pervasive in the province. A huge covered court overshadows the monument in the plaza depicting the historic event. Other than that, a casual passerby will not have any inkling of the town’s significance in Philippine history.