Will Balangiga bells toll again in Samar?

WASHINGTON — The Wyoming Veterans Commission and Gov. Dave Freudenthal are at odds over the fate of the famed Bells of Balangiga, which US troops took away as war booty more than a century ago and put on display at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.

The commission favors returning the bells to the Philippines but Freudenthal opposes it, the Casper Star Tribune reported on Friday.

The chairman of the Veterans Commission, Robert Palmer, told reporter Joan Barron a majority of the commission members had voted to return the bells to the Roman Catholic Church in Balangiga, a town in Eastern Samar.

"It’s not binding. It’s just a recommendation. It’s just a resolution," Barron quoted Palmer as saying.

Before the bells could be returned, the US Congress would have to act, Palmer said. The location of the bells on federal territory makes their return even more complicated and problematic.

But "Filipinos have been wanting those bells for years, and they keep putting a lot of pressure on," Palmer told the newspaper.

Bishop Leonardo Medroso of Eastern Samar visited the United States, including Washington DC, 18 months ago to press for the return of the bells.

Medroso has taken it upon himself to recover the bells following years of fruitless negotiations between the Philippines and the United States over their return.

The ringing of the bells on Sept. 28, 1901 was said to have been the signal for Filipino guerrillas to attack a contingent of US soldiers occupying Balangiga, inflicting heavy casualties on them.

In retaliation, US reinforcements killed tens of thousands of Filipinos, many of them civilians. The bells were later seized by US troops and shipped as war booty to Wyoming, home of the 11th Infantry troop reinforcements.