Balangiga Encounter and Bells

During the Philippine-American War, on September 28, 1901, Eugenio Daza, Area Commander of Southeastern Samar and Valeriano Abanador, the Balangiga's pulahan chief, launched an attack on U.S. Army Company C 9th Infantry Regiment who were occupying Balangiga. With Philippine Revolutionary Army forces and Balangiga villagers, killing 48 and wounding 22 of the 78 men of the unit, with only four escaping unhurt and four missing in action. The villagers captured about 100 rifles and 25,000 rounds of ammunition. An estimated 20 to 25 of them died in the fighting, with a similar number of wounded.^[5]

Statue and Historical Market of Valeriano Abanador, Balangiga.

U.S. soldiers of Company C, 9th Infantry Regiment pose with one of the Balangiga bells seized as war trophy. Photo taken in Calbayog, Samar in April 1902.

The signal bell displayed in the Madison Barracks at Sackets Harbor, New York station of the 9th US Infantry Regiment at the turn of the 20th century. This bell was later moved to Camp Red Cloud in Korea.

Two bells exhibited at Fort D.A. Russel (now Francis E. Warren Air Force Base) c. 1910^[6]

In reprisal, General Jacob H. Smith ordered that Samar be turned into a "howling wilderness" and that they shoot any Filipino male above ten years of age^[5] who was capable of bearing arms. The American soldiers seized three church bells including Bangahon Church bell of old Gandara and from the town church Balangiga and moved them home to the United States as war trophies. The 9th Infantry Regiment maintained that the single bell in their possession was presented to the regiment by villagers when the unit left Balangiga on 9 April 1902. The bell had been actually given to them by the 11th Infantry Regiment, which had taken all three bells when they left Balangiga for Tacloban on 18 October 1901.^[7]

Smith and his primary subordinate, Major Littleton Waller of the United States Marine Corps, were both court-martialled for illegal vengeance against the civilian population of Samar. Waller was acquitted of the charges. Smith was found guilty, admonished and retired from service, but charges were dropped shortly after. He was later hailed as a war hero.^[8]

The bells were returned on December 11, 2018.^[9]

Barangays

Balangiga is politically subdivided into 13 barangays. ^[10] Each barangay consists of puroks and some have sitios.

• Bacjao
• Cag-olango
• Cansumangcay
• Guinmaayohan
• Poblacion I
• Poblacion II
• Poblacion III
• Poblacion IV
• Poblacion V
• Poblacion VI
• San Miguel
• Santa Rosa
• Maybunga

Climate