More than a hundred years ago, a bloody encounter between small-town residents (mostly farmers) and American troops erupted in Balangiga, Eastern Samar that shook
America’s war rooms and exposed its imperialist designs. The incident may have been dismissed by both American and Philippine authorities as a forgettable footnote of Philippine-American war history, but it continues to resonate with unresolved issues until today.
At dawn of September 28, 1901, the bells of Balangiga rang like they never did before. It turned out to be the signal for hundreds of bolo-wielding Balangigan-ons to attack the barracks of Company C, an elite group of the United States Army that, months earlier, appropriated for itself a military base in that town. Forty-eight of the 74 American soldiers present died as a result of the assault, while 28 native combatants perished. Up to that time, not a single band of the US Army has suffered as much number of casualties anywhere as it did in Balangiga.
The hierarchy of US armed forces raged at knowing about the carnage, one that the Americans would eventually call “massacre.” None of their generals must have thought that such an atrocity—a “terrorist act” in present-day language—could have happened with their own men at the receiving end. For a country edging to become the world’s new military superpower, the incident has, for a moment, shaken its military headquarters. Reprisal had to follow. Out for revenge, the American forces condemned Balangiga and practically all of Samar Island into a “howling wilderness,” razing houses and properties to the ground, and killing and maiming people—including women and children. The sweeping condemnation has been recorded as responsible for the death and disappearance of thousands of Samareños.
In victory the Americans left Balangiga with three of the church bells in tow. Two of the bells would eventually end up on display in Wyoming and one was left in a US military base in Korea. For years, individuals and groups (mostly from the Philippines) have petitioned the US for the return of the bells to Balangiga. But up to this day the bells remain in American possession, prompting some quarters to say in exasperation that the Philippine-American war has yet to end.
Balangiga in the context of Philippine-American-Spanish war
Spain was a global colonial power until at least at the closing years of the 19th century. Its colonies included Cuba and the Philippines. Cuba revolted against Spain in 1995 and the Philippines, through its katipuneros, did the same at about the same time. While all these things unfolded, the US has expressed its sympathy for the independence dream among colonized countries, and in particular for Cuba. The US in effect put itself at odds with the colonial interests of Spain.
Something dramatic happened in February 1898 when the US battleship Maine exploded and capsized in Cuba, claiming the lives of 250 American soldiers. America charged that Spain was responsible for the attack. In the same way that the September 11 attack pushed the US to pulverize Irag a hundred years later, American declared war against Spain. Armed hostilities broke out in Cuba in April 1898 and in Manila Bay in May 1898.
General Emilio Aguinaldo, who succeeded Andres Bonifacio as chief katipunero after a contentious political bickering that led to the latter’s own execution, had earlier agreed with Spain to go on exile in exchange of Spain’s carrying out political reforms in the Philippines. On the prodding of America, Aguinaldo in June 1898 returned to the country from his exile in Hongkong, convinced that America was helping the Philippines gain independence from Spain. He declared Philippine independence on June 12 of that year, but America did not recognize it.
Leaving the Filipinos out of their schemes, America and Spain plotted a mock battle in Manila Bay in August 1898, after which formalities sealed Spain’s surrender to America. Four months later the Treaty of Paris would be signed, with Spain formally ceding the Philippines to the US, and selling it for 20 million dollars.
The Philippine-American war followed, which ended in March 1901 with Aguinaldo’r arrest and eventual surrender. Nevertheless, pockets of rebellion would erupt from time to time after that, prompting America to implement a “pacification program” throughout the country. In July 1901 the US Army sent the Company C—widely recognized for its successful campaigns in earlier battles—to Balangiga to pacify Samar Island.
The people of Balangiga and the Americans co-existed harmoniously. But the Filipinos would eventually resent the latter’s presence. They complained of abuses being committed against them, particularly against the women. The resentment would reach a point where the bells in Balangiga would reverberate on that fateful morning of September 28.
What happened in Balangiga exposed America’s desires. Apart from helping Cuba and the Philippines gain their independence from Spain, the US in reality flexed its muscle as an emerging imperial power. America was (and is) willing to kill and to risk the lives of its own soldiers, all in the name of manifest destiny.
Defending the Treaty of Paris on the floor of the US Senate on January 1900, Senator Albert Beveridge said: “God … has made us the master organizers of the world … He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples… This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit …”
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