While villages all over the country awaken at dawn to the pealing of bells that call them to the Misa de Gallo, residents of Balangiga have extra reason to hearken to church bells.
The set of bells taken from them as war booty by American soldiers have been turned over from the American to the Philippine government after many years of appeals for their return.
As Catholic bishops of the Philippines have noted, the restoration of the bells is a step that makes friendship between Filipinos and Americans more genuine than merely rhetorical.
The bells should be placed where they ought to be: as part of a church building, as an instrument that brings people together in the peaceful activity of prayer.
While bells may be used in time of emergency and to sound off an alarm, they were never destined to become symbols of the triumph of one people over another in time of war.
Missing the point, many fans of President Rodrigo Duterte have lauded him for allegedly being the only Filipino leader who boldly called for the return of the bells.
As the United States embassy has noted, however, the handing over of the bells to their rightful custodian communities was the result of years of effort by many Filipinos and Americans.
The bishops have nevertheless given credit to the President for bringing the saga of the bells to a satisfying closure, a conclusion that should not (since history best teaches when it is a living history) be sullied by one senator’s suggestion that a bell be kept in a museum.
The return of the bells is an act of restitution that teaches Filipinos, especially those without a sense of history, the value of reconciliation based on truth and justice.
May the tolling of the bells, of Balangiga and of other places in the country awaken consciences that need to bring healing to the country through truth and justice, be it of high officials ordered by the court to return to the treasury money that is not theirs, or legislators who need to purify their public service intentions by
resisting the lure of being in charge of large lump sums of money for projects in their home districts.
If bells can be returned long after the time of those who died when they were stolen, today’s leaders should not wait for the passing of a generation before they return people’s money to its rightful place: the national treasury
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