Saturday, September 28, 2024

Balangiga 1901: Did American fumble the bag?

Balangiga 1901: Did America fumble the bag? was also published by The Manila Times. Photo credit: Manila Times cartoon 25 Sep 2024.


On Saturday, 28 September 2024, the province of Eastern Samar will commemorate the 123rd anniversary of Balangiga Encounter Day. Balangiga is one of the 22 component towns of the province (Borongan, the provincial capital, is a city). Republic Act No. 6692 immortalizes the significance of the celebration and has proclaimed September 28 as a special non-working holiday in the whole province of Eastern Samar.

The celebration aims to honor the valor and patriotism shown by the people of Balangiga in an uprising against American aggression. Hopefully it may also serve as a guiding light and a beacon of hope for a generation of Filipinos in need of another streak of heroism from their midst.

The Balangiga Encounter Day can be better appreciated with the twin backdrop of the last few years of the Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines as well as the Philippine-American war that raged from 1899 to 1902.

The Spanish colonial occupation started in 1521 when Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for the King of Spain, reached the shores of Homonhon Island, which is also part of Eastern Samar. For more than four centuries, Spain controlled and exercised sovereignty over the archipelago that in 1542 another Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos had named “Philippines” after Prince Phillip (who later became King Phillip II of Spain).

It took a while, a long while, but Filipinos, like all peoples and races, had longed to be free. Self-educated Andres Bonifacio co-organized the Katipunan with like-minded Filipinos who believed an armed rebellion against Spain was inevitable. From a resistance movement, the Katipunan eventually became a shadow revolutionary government. Its membership expanded rapidly, with smaller groups established in other parts of Luzon, as well as a few others in the Visayas and Mindanao. When an uprising did happen, starting sometime in August 1896 when the Katipuneros tore their cedula in Caloocan in what would be called “Cry of Pugad Lawin,” or “Cry of Balintawak,” the march for freedom had crossed its Rubicon.

The revolutionaries succeeded in many of the local battles, especially in the province of Cavite where Emilio Aguinaldo showed his military and organizational skills. In 1897, the revolution lost some of its steam, at least temporarily, when partisan conflicts between Aguinaldo’s Magdalo forces and Bonifacio’s Magdiwang troopers led to the latter’s trial for treason, among other trumped-up charges, before a tribunal sanctioned by Aguinaldo. Bonifacio was eventually found guilty and executed. Before his death, Bonifacio (obviously the more radical of the two) also accused Aguinaldo of treason for trying to forge a peace agreement with the Spanish authorities.

In December 1897, Aguinaldo signed the Pact of Biak-na-Bato to end the armed conflict with Spain. Aside from the cessation of hostilities, the peace agreement required Aguinaldo to dissolve his revolutionary government and for Spain to indemnify the revolutionaries in the amount of close to a million Mexican pesos. Aguinaldo and several revolutionary officials went on a voluntary exile to Hong Kong where they nevertheless continued to reorganize the revolutionary government.

The sinking of USS Maine in Cuba (caused by an internal explosion which the US government blamed on Spanish forces) ignited the Spanish-American war in April 1898. Cuba was itself in the middle of a struggle to free itself from the colonial rule of Spain, and the US, helping the cause of Cuba, went into a war against Spain that spilled over across the globe, reaching Spanish territories that included the Philippines.

The enemy of the enemy was a friend. In May 1898, Commodore George Dewey of the US Navy Asiatic Squadron fished Aguinaldo from Hong Kong and sailed for Manila to help the Filipinos crush the remnants of Spanish military forces in the Philippines. Aguinaldo declared Philippine independence a month later in Kawit, Cavite, his hometown, capping centuries of struggle for consensus among Filipinos divided on the means by which to achieve self-rule and the molding of a national identity. Dewey’s troops were among those who witnessed the unfurling of the Philippine flag and public singing of “Lupang Hinirang” (the Philippine National Anthem).

But the deception was yet to unravel. On 13 August 1898, the US and Spain sparred in what came to be known as the mock battle of Manila. Although there were a few casualties (sh*t happened, to borrow the words of then Philippine National Police Chief, now Senator, Ronald De La Rosa, ruing the death of an infant while waging then President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs) it was staged to save Spain from the embarrassment of its surrender to the Filipinos and to preempt Aguinaldo and his men from taking control of the colony’s premier city. A few deaths from the ranks of Spanish forces were attributed to Filipinos who thought the Spaniards were indeed battling the Americans. 

Eight months later, in December 1898, the US and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris to end their armed conflict with zero participation by any Philippine representative during the negotiations. The treaty ushered in the rise of the US as a global player and supplanted Spain as the world’s imperial power. The peace agreement required Spain to relinquish its title and sovereign claim over territories such as the islands of Puerto Rico, Guam, West Indies and the Philippines. The discussion on what to do with the Philippines was contentious. Spain hesitated to part the entire archipelago to the incoming colonizer, but eventually relented when the US offered twenty million dollars to sweeten the deal.

Voting 57-27, the US Senate barely passed the required two-thirds vote to ratify a treaty. Senator Albert Beveridge, who voted in favor of the treaty and one of the loudest American voices calling for the annexation of the Philippines, opened one of his 1900 speeches on the floor of the senate with these words:

“MR. PRESIDENT, the times call for candor. The Philippines are ours forever, "territory belonging to the United States," as the Constitution calls them. And just beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either. We will not repudiate our duty in the archipelago. We will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient…”

Emilio Aguinaldo was clueless about the Treaty of Paris. He did not know that Spain sold his country to the US like a piece of real estate property. When he did know the whole scheme, the grand imperialist shebang, he had no option but to wage another war. 

Here then was a riveting sight of Aguinaldo fighting the Spaniards one day and the Americans on the next day. This was getting tougher and tougher for him and his valiant men. Superior enemy resources forced Aguinaldo to mount a guerilla war from the fringes against the Americans. Unfortunately for him and the cause of resistance against foreign invaders, the Americans, with the help of Filipino collaborators, tracked him down in March 1901 in Isabela, leading to his capture. A month later, the first president of the Philippine republic took his oath of allegiance to the new colonial master.

And yet, despite Aguinaldo’s arrest, pockets of rebellion persisted in other parts of the country, notably in Samar Island (which Congress in 1965 divided into three provinces—Northern Samar, Samar, and Eastern Samar) and in Mindanao, where the Moro rebellion raged until 1913.

Although minimal in proportion to Filipino losses, the protracted war continued to claim the lives of American soldiers (with estimates of over 4,200 Americans and over 20,000 Filipinos having died in combat).  

The US could not accept belligerence, especially when the American press was giving equal space to anti-annexation sentiments. To quote Beveridge, the champion orator, again:

This war is like all other wars. It needs to be finished before it is stopped. I am prepared to vote either to make our work thorough or even now to abandon it. A lasting peace can be secured only by overwhelming forces in ceaseless action until universal and absolutely final defeat is inflicted on the enemy. To halt before every armed force, every guerrilla band, opposing us is dispersed or exterminated will prolong hostilities and leave alive the seeds of perpetual insurrection.

In August 1901, the American government sent Company C of the 9th U.S. Infantry Regiment to Balangiga as part of a strategy to consolidate its military positions throughout the Philippines. The Americans employed carrot and stick approaches to win the loyalty of their subjects. But the Samareños were hard to please. In fact, they soon resented their being hosts to what turned out to be overbearing guests. A month later, on 28 September 1901, hundreds of able-bodied men of Balangiga and neighboring towns, armed with bolos and a few locally made muskets, swarmed the Americans in a surprise early morning attack. Thirty-six of 74 Americans were killed on the spot, 8 more died days later from the wounds they suffered. This was, according to some historical accounts, the "worst defeat of United States Army soldiers since the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876."

The US Army’s response to the uprising was brutal. American General Jacob H. Smith directed a “six-day killing and burning” spree in Balangiga and neighboring towns that killed some 2,000 civilians on top of over 200 houses that were razed to the ground.

The Americans also carted away three church bells in Balangiga as war mementos. The US kept these relics in its possession until 2018, way much longer than the antagonists had mended their relations, evolving from foe to friend. During World War II, when in 1941 Japan attacked British and US territories in Asia and the Pacific that included the Philippines, Filipino soldiers fought side-by-side with Americans against the new aggressors.

In 1951, five years after the Philippines gained its independence from the US, both countries signed a Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) that required one to support the other in the event a third party militarily attacks either of them. The Philippines was in good shape, at least in economic terms, during much of the time that it enjoyed the initial years of its being an independent and sovereign state. Until its political leaders lost their way, committing their country and people to questionable debts that hardly serve the interest of the public.

If Beveridge were alive today, he must be in for the shock of his life to see how his 1900 vision had played out. Instead of America exploiting the limitless China market, the Asian economy has grown as large as that of his own country. It has now become almost impossible for American companies to compete with their Chinese counter parts on a global scale. Eight of the ten richest individuals in the Philippines and most ASEAN-member countries are either Chinese or of Chinese descent.

In terms of both economic and military expansionism, Beveridge’s America fumbled it. The MDT has not even prevented China from using military and paramilitary means to grab pieces of the territories within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone. Of course, much of the Philippine problem lies within its government—because, sadly, gone are the heroism and patriotic bent exemplified by Bonifacio, Aguinaldo, and the people of Balangiga in 1901.  

Equally responsible for the economic and military decline of the Philippines, in relation to its neighbors, are the voters who keep sending clowns, quislings, and all sorts of misfits to high elective positions. What Beveridge said in 1900 resonates until today:

The most enlightened among them [Filipinos] declare that self-government will succeed because the employers of labor will compel their employees to vote as their employer wills and that this will insure intelligent voting. I was assured that we could depend upon good men always being in office because the officials who constitute the government will nominate their successors.

Let me quickly add that in today’s electoral landscape, political dynasties which often also double as the employers—meaning, the wealthy overlords—are instrumental in shaping how the voting will go.

Beveridge saw through the stuff that Filipinos were made of.

As a race, their general ability is not excellent... in all solid and useful education they are, as a people, dull and stupid. In showy things, like carving and painting or embroidery or music, they have apparent aptitude, but even this is superficial and never thorough… the common people in their stupidity are like their caribou bulls. They will quit work without notice and amuse themselves until the money they have earned is spent. They are like children playing at men's work.

His own race and his descendants are equally bums, of course, if measured from how he saw the world during his time:

“The power that rules the Pacific… is the power that rules the world. And, with the Philippines, that power is and will forever be the American Republic… Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question. China is our natural customer.”

The way to reaping economic dividends through the hegemony that Beveridge dreamed of just detoured from America to China. And it looks like it will stay that way for a long while.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Bells of Balangiga Revisited

An interview with Bob Couttie, author of "Hang The Dogs: The True and Tragic History of Balangiga Massacre"
http://www.philnews.com/2005/da.html

This editorial revisits the issue of the bells of Balangiga. At present, the United States has in its possession three bells that belonged to the parish church of Balangiga. Since mid 90's, when President Ramos sought their return from the Clinton Administration, various veteran and historical associations have lobbied for and against their return.

The Balangiga "incident" as some prefer to call it, happened over a hundred years ago on the Visayan island of Samar. In the early morning hours of September 28, 1901, as a company of American soldiers prepared for breakfast, bolo-wielding townsmen launched a surprise attack on them. By the end of that day 48 Americans were dead, 22 were wounded, and only four escaped unharmed.
American forces quickly launched a brutal counter-offensive that destroyed the town and killed scores of Filipinos. Balangiga was left in ruins. The American soldiers then took with them three bells from the parish church.
Today, Filipinos want those bells back and while some Americans favor the return of at least one bell, others refuse to consider even that.
To better understand this issue Philippine NewsLink turned to Bob Couttie, author of the book Hang the Dogs, The True and Tragic History of the Balangiga Massacre, published late last year in the Philippines.
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U.S. to return the bells of Balangiga


Extant photograph of some American survivors with their bell of Balangiga. This photo was taken in Calbayog, Samar, sometime in April 1902. (Published version in the Leyte-Samar Studies.)



By Rolando O. Borrinaga

(NOTE: This article originally appeared in the maiden issue of Bankaw News dated January 16-22, 1995 and reprinted in Eastern Visayas Quarterly, September 1995 issue, and in the 1996 commemorative program of the "Balangiga Massacre". This was written at a time when the hopes of getting back the Bells of Balangiga were high after US Pres. Bill Clinton, during a visit to Manila, agreed to return these relics. Years and several debacles later, the hopes are at an all time low. Still the struggle must go on.)

At long last, the quest is over.

US President Bill Clinton, in the spirit of "fair play," has agreed to return the church bells of Balangiga, Eastern Samar to the Philippines.

The two bells, each more than three feet in height, were carted off to the United States as war booty by returning US Cavalry troops 90 years ago. They are now mounted on a granite monument near the flagpole at the Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.

The bells were rung to signal a successful attack by native bolo fighters that almost wiped out a company of US Marines during the infamous "Balangiga Massacre" on September 28, 1901.

The massacre of US troops at Balangiga was the worst single defeat of the US Army during the Philippine-American War at the turn of the century. It was followed by the extermination of thousands of Samareños, mostly civilians 10 years old and above, when the American military retaliated with a "kill-and-burn" policy imposed by General Jacob Smith. This policy of hatred and revenge was aimed to reduce Samar into a "howling wilderness."

Delayed announcement

Pres. Clinton pledged to return the bells of Balangiga during his one-on-one meeting with President Fidel V. Ramos in Manila on November 13, 1994. The information was revealed more than a month later by Pres. Ramos himself, and the news was published by The Manila Times in its December 17, 1994 issue.

However, the report did not explain the one-month delay in issuing the official announcement.

Ramos said Clinton "has assigned his military staff to look into the matter."

In the same report, Foreign Affairs Secretary Roberto Romulo (now resigned) said he was instructed by the president "to follow up the matter (of the bells)." He added that the Department of Foreign Affairs was already working with the US Government to facilitate the return of the relics to the country.

"The bells are of historic importance because they were used by ill-equipped Filipino revolutionaries, under General Vicente Lukban, as a means of coordinating an attack against American troopers who were at the time herding civilians into hamlets in Balangiga, Eastern Samar," The Manila Times report elaborated.

US military sources cited that only 48 American soldiers, including their commander Capt. Thomas Connel, perished during the Balangiga Massacre. The other members of Company "C", 9th Infantry Regiment of the US Army, were reported to have escaped on native boats with varying degrees of injury.

However, the official figures have been contradicted by folk information that insisted only two out of the 74 men assigned in Balangiga survived the attack.

The natives suffered 28 deaths during the same attack.

The Americans reported that the attack happened on September 28, 1901. But this date had also been disputed by folk information, telling that it occurred on "Saturday, September 29, 1901, the feast day of St. Michael Archangel." The native attackers, led by Capitan Valeriano Abanador, reportedly prayed for the divine protection of St. Michael to enhance their success.

The American defeat at Balangiga was followed by swift and brutal retaliation of the US Army. With Gen. Smith’s "kill-and-burn" policy, between 500 and 1,000 natives, mostly civilian men, women, and children 10 years old and above, were killed for every American who perished during the Balangiga attack.

The church bells were extracted from the belfry by reinforcement troops a few days after the attack. They were transported to the US in 1904, long after the Philippine-American War had ended.

Return the bells

Former Senator Rene V. Saguisag, who has collected archival materials about the Balangiga event in the US, claimed that the earliest recorded effort he had seen to get back the bells of Balangiga was in 1957. The Jesuit historian, Fr. Horacio de la Costa, wrote twice to Mr. Chip Wards, Command Historian of the 13th Air Force in San Francisco, California.

A year later, the American Franciscan Fathers in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental, also wrote to Mr. Wards, claiming that one of the two bells (dated 1883 and 1889, respectively) was of Franciscan origin.

Other groups and individuals have also worked, off and on, both to highlight the Balangiga event and to petition for the return of the bells to the Philippines.

In 1982, the National Historical Institute, upon the representation of Balangiga residents in Metro-Manila, authorized the installation of a historical marker in the plaza where the massacre occurred "to honor national heroes and perpetuate the glory of their deeds and to preserve historical sites." This marker was inlaid at the pedestal of the monument in honor of Capitan Valeriano Abanador.

On his part, Representative Jose Tan Ramirez of Eastern Samar filed a bill that came out in 1988 as R.A. No. 6692, designating September 28 of every year as "Balangiga Encounter Day" and making this day an official non-working holiday in the entire province.

In 1989 the Balangiga Historical Society, through the National Historical Institute and the Department of Foreign Affairs, petitioned the US Government for the return of their town’s church bells. "The return of the bells would mean a great deal to the town people of Balangiga, as they represent the rich heritage of the town, the emblem and the aspirations of their forefathers for freedom and liberty," the petition highlighted.

After sensing that their plea had fallen on deaf ears, the Balangiga Historical Society requested Senator Heherson Alvarez to intercede on their behalf. The senator obliged by communicating with then US Ambassador Richard Solomon in Manila and making an official visit to Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, USA, in 1993.

In 1994 Sen. Alvarez wrote to both US Ambassador John D. Negroponte and Pres. Clinton for the return of the bells to the Philippines.

There had been a lot of support for the return of the Balangiga bells to the country. But there was also formidable resistance. Some opposition came from officials and residents of Wyoming. And last September 1994, US Ambassador Negroponte officially admitted that the US Air Force did not favor the return of the bells. The resistance had stalled the unfocused Filipino efforts and placed them in limbo.

"A doomed cause"

The media focus on the 50th Leyte Landing Anniversary last October 20, 1994 provided an opportunity to renew the call for the return of the Balangiga bells to the Philippines.

On August 11, 1994, a letter by this writer was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Entitled "Bells of Balangiga," the letter linked the Balangiga bells episode and MacArthur’s return as bloody contradictions of the American heritage in Leyte and Samar. To resolve this contradiction, the letter appealed for the magnanimous commitment of the US Government to return the bells to the country.

His message stuck. It was repeated in several other letters and in a full feature published by the Inquirer during the week of the Leyte Landing celebration.

This writer’s call was paralleled by former Senator Saguisag, who had written about the Balangiga bells in several of his previous columns in The Manila Times. On October 12, 1944, he wrote the column item "Leyte and the Balangiga bells," wherein he cited his common concern with this writer and alluded to the US Government to commit the return of the bells, either during the Leyte Landing writes or during Pres. Clinton’s visit last November.

"Let freedom ring once more from those bells, back in Balangiga where they belong, to punctuate America’s generosity of spirit and the gallantry of our forebears, and complete the healing," Saguisag appealed.

Saguisag’s article caught the attention of Father David Turnbull, OFM, former parish priest of Naval, Biliran, and a friend of US Ambassador and Mrs. John D. Negroponte. After reading the article. Fr. Turnbull wrote to this writer, his former spiritual ward, and asked information about the Balangiga bells. He offered to make personal representation on the matter with some US Embassy staff.

After receiving the information materials from this writer, Fr. Turnbull eventually brought up the Balangiga bells issue with the US ambassador and his wife, Diana. In a letter, the priest advised this writer to keep up his hopes for the return of the bells. Meanwhile, the latter’s local critics sneered at his "doomed cause."

Anti-climax

Indeed, the quest for the bells of Balangiga appeared doomed.

The hint came from Pres. Ramos himself. Last September 1994, when he came to Leyte to oversee the preparations for the Leyte Landing commemoration, the president was asked about the bells during a press conference. His answer was: "Let us forget the past (memorialized by the bells) and look to the future."

October 20, 1994 came and went. The Leyte Landing speeches made no mention about the bells. But November 13, 1994, the date of the Clinton visit, also came and went without any official announcement about the fate of the Balangiga bells.

One week later, this writer wrote his column for another local weekly newspaper. He said he had given up his own quest for the return of the bells. He reasoned that since the two best opportunities to pressure for the return of the bells had come and gone, any future related effort looked futile.

Thus, when the news broke that Pres. Clinton had agreed to return the bells of Balangiga during his November visit, it came as an anti-climax.

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