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Lorenzana: Balangiga bells’ return has tempered Duterte’s sentiments vs. US


The return of the three Balangiga bells to the Philippines after 117 years has somehow eased President Rodrigo Duterte's irritable sentiments against the United States, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Tuesday.

The bells were seized by American troops as war booty in 1901, after the massacre of thousands of Filipinos in Samar in retaliation for an ambush by Filipino guerillas that killed at least 40 US soldiers.

“[The return of the bells] is very important kasi irritant 'yan eh. Kasi bakit kinuha? At least 40 of them died in the ambush, but they do not say that there were also able to kill 28 Filipinos, and even returned to kill innocent people of Samar,” Lorenzana said in an exclusive GMA News Online interview with GMA News' resident political analyst Richard Heydarian.

“We are at war then. Do they expect na mag relax [ang mga Pilipino]? May aasahan talaga silang [ambush] kasi we are at war nga eh. And even if you were ambushed, there is no need to retaliate by killing innocent people. Now that the bells are here, wala nang irritation,” Lorenzana added.

The Defense chief also clarified that the President does not take credit for the return of the bells, saying he knows it was due to decades of tireless efforts by groups and individuals in both countries.

“The President does not take credit for it. He knows it is caused by the effort of both countries,” Lorenzana said.

He cited that the return of the Balangiga bells has been stalled at least twice: when Wyoming's state government and the US Congress opposed it in 2005, and in 2012, when a law was passed against returning the bells to the Philippines for a period of five years.

But when the law expired in 2017, Lorenzana said that both parties, with the help of then-US Defense Secretary James Mattis, began lobbying for support for the return of the bells.

Two of the bells had been displayed at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming until their return to the Philippines.

When the bells arrived in Manila after 117 years, US envoy to Manila Sung Kim said that their return is about doing what is right and closes the atrocious page of the relationship between the Philippines and the US.

“That was a very painful chapter in our history and I hope the return of the bells closes that chapter. It happened many decades ago and we cannot erase what happened...there were legal and political considerations, but there was never any doubt in my mind, in my colleagues' minds and the private sector who helped us, that we are making the right decision in returning the bells,” Kim said then. — BM, GMA News

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