One or two Balangiga bells were suggested to be kept in Manila —PHL envoy

Philippine ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel "Babe" Romualdez on Tuesday said there was a suggestion to keep one or two of the Balangiga bells in Manila for people to see it.

“There were suggestions that they would leave some of these bells, one or two, here in Manila for people to be able to see it,” he said in an interview on ANC.

However, it will depend on the decision of the Catholic Church if they would allow this.

“I think the decision has to be made by the Catholic Church. It is the parish church in Samar that really owns these bells so they will rightfully be returned to the Catholic Church,” Romualdez explained.

The parish where the three bells were taken from in 1901 no longer exists, he said.

“It’s all up to them [Catholic Church] what they want to do with these bells,” Romualdez said.

He also said that the bells have a potential to be a tourist attraction considering the amount of publicity they got from President Rodrigo Duterte’s speeches and media coverage.

“I think Balangiga (bells) is going to be the biggest recipient of many tourists because these bells have so much publicity and everyone is curious,” Romualdez said.

Meanwhile, he added that the ceremony upon the arrival of the Balangiga bells in Villamor Air Base in Pasay City on Tuesday is merely a military rite.

“The ceremony today is purely military to military operation,” he said.

“The Pentagon officials headed by [Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense] Joseph Felter will formally return it over, together with Ambassador [to the Philippines Sung] Kim to [Defense] Secretary Delfin Lorenzana,” he added.

The bells arrived at around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The three bells were taken by American soldiers in September 1901 from an Eastern Samar church after their retaliatory attack on Filipino guerrillas who earlier killed 48 American soldiers in storming the 9th US Infantry Regiment during the war.

Two of the bells were displayed at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming while a third bell was kept at a museum at Camp Red Cloud in South Korea.

All three bells were brought to the US air base in Okinawa, Japan and loaded onto a US Air Force C-130 plane Tuesday morning for the flight to Manila.

The three bells will be airlifted to Balangiga, Eastern Samar this week and displayed temporarily at the compound of St. Lawrence the Martyr Church for public viewing. —Joviland Rita/KG, GMA News