THE PRINT on the back of the locally printed t-shirts said it all: "Let the bells ring [from] the belfry where they belong."

With that terse message, the town of Balangiga in Eastern Samar commemorated the 103rd anniversary of the "Balangiga Encounter Day" last Tuesday, Sept. 28.

In line with the government's austerity measures during this fiscal crisis, the town also cut on some expenses. The ceremonial activities were all cramped up in the morning, including the theatrical reenactment of their famous event, which used to be held in the afternoon.

And the town parade after the morning church Mass no longer had the customary floats, including the one with the copy of the memorial with the two bells of Balangiga now displayed at an Air Force base in the United States.

And the town now talks about three identified bells, not just two, which they wish to be returned to the church belfry of their town.

The officially called "Balangiga Encounter" refers to the local event in the morning of Saturday, Sept. 28, 1901, when some 500 native fighters mostly armed with bolos staged a successful attack on soldiers of Company C, 9th US Infantry Regiment, who were mostly eating or lining up for breakfast in their garrison in the town.

The result was the "worst single defeat" of the US Army during the Philippine-American War more than a century ago. This event was known in US official reports and publications as the "Balangiga Massacre."

Of the 74 men of Company C, 36 were killed during the attack (including the three commissioned officers), eight of the wounded died later during the escape by bancas to Basey town, and four were missing and presumed dead.

Of the 26 American survivors, only four were not wounded.

The natives suffered 28 deaths and 22 wounded.

For a long time, it had been believed that the church bells of Balangiga were used to signal the attack on the US troops. But two recently published books about the Balangiga event had established that that attack had begun when a bell was rung as signal for the hidden reinforcements to join the attack on the garrison.

Considered one of the worst defeats in US military history, the Filipino victory in Balangiga was followed by a shameful episode that the US government has not yet regretted nor apologized for.

US military authorities retaliated with a "kill and burn" policy to take back Samar, deliberately equating a victorious small town with an entire island, from October 1901 to January 1902.

Implemented by the Sixth Separate Brigade under Brig. Gen. Jacob H. Smith of the US Army, which included a battalion of US Marines under Major Littleton T. W. Waller, the campaign was blamed for the alleged disappearance of some 15,000 people in Samar.

The general reportedly gave orders to kill anybody capable of bearing arms (specifically, 10 years old and above) during the combat operations to reduce Samar into a "howling wilderness."

Aside from the population loss, the Samar campaign resulted in massive devastation of the rural economic base in terms of hundreds of burned houses, destroyed native boats, and slaughtered carabaos, the Filipinos' draft animals. US troops likewise burned and confiscated rice and food stocks and market-ready abaca (hemp) fibers, the principal source of local cash income.

General Smith was eventually made the scapegoat for the shameful policy on Samar. He was forced to retire from the US Army following a court martial.

The three church bells of Balangiga were taken days after the attack by men of the 11th US Infantry, another US Army unit that occupied the abandoned town before being relieved by US Marines on Oct. 23, 1901.

These "war trophies" were shipped out of the Leyte-Samar region from the headquarters of the 11th US Infantry at the former Camp Bumpus, now the Leyte Park Resort in Tacloban City.

The camp was named after 1st Lt. Edward A. Bumpus, Harvard alumnus and second in command of Company C, who was also killed in Balangiga.

The smallest bell was turned over to the headquarters of the 9th US Infantry Regiment in Calbayog, Samar, around April 1902. This relic is on permanent display at the traveling museum of the 9th US Infantry, now stationed in Tongduchon, South Korea.

The two bigger bells were brought to the US by returning 11th Infantry soldiers to their home station at the former Fort D.A. Russell, now the F.E. Warren Air Force Base, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Both are now displayed at the Balangiga Memorial in its Trophy Park.

The return of the Bells of Balangiga to the Philippines remains the last issue of contention between the US and Philippine governments related to the Philippine-American War.

In an interview with the Inquirer, Balangiga Mayor Catalina M. Camenforte hoped that the US government would take the initiative to have the bells in Wyoming returned to her town in the spirit of peace and reconciliation.

In a speech prepared for the occasion, Eastern Samar Gov. Ben P. Evardone cited recent findings of the Balangiga Research Group (BRG) related to the bells issue.

The BRG is a multi-national group composed of this writer; Bob Couttie, a Subic-based video director and historian; and Jean Wall, the daughter of the first American soldier to be attacked in Balangiga a century ago.

The BRG findings presented independent proofs of the Balangiga origin of the three bells.

Experts around the world that the BRG had consulted were one in saying that based on custom law, military law, and international treaties, the contested bells belong to Balangiga.

All US officials directly involved in the Balangiga issue on both sides of the Pacific, including US Army senior leaders and diplomats, have also been one in saying, although quietly, that their government knows that the right, legal and ethical course of action is to return the bells to their rightful place - that is, in Balangiga.

On top of these, the US Congress, through the Unified Code of Military Justice, has provided the US president with the required authority to return the bells regardless of the status of the property rights involved.

"Now that the US government has run out of arguments to skirt the issue of the Balangiga bells, perhaps it is high time for President George Bush to muster his political will to return these bells where they belong, and bring a closure to the last issue of contention between the Philippines and the United States related to the Philippine-American War a century ago," Evardone said.

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