(Eagle News) — President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday, Dec. 13, said the return of the Balangiga bells to the country was due to the “demand of the Filipino people.”
“Let me be clear on this, here and now. The credit of the return of the Balangiga bells does not belong to any worker or officials of government,” Duterte said in a speech during the unveiling of the Las Pinas Drug Rehabilitation Center marker in Pulang Lupa, Las Pinas.
Earlier, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo attributed the United States’ return of the bells to the Philippines to President Duterte’s strong political will.
Duterte first called for the return of the bells, which American soldiers had taken from the town in Eastern Samar as war booty during the Filipino-American war in 1901, in his State of the Nation Address in July 2017.
The bells–two of which had been housed in a military base in Wyoming, and another in a US military facility in South Korea–arrived at the Villamor Airbase in Pasay on Tuesday, Dec. 11.
The bells will be turned over to Balangiga on Saturday, Dec. 15, in a ceremony President Duterte is expected to attend.
Panelo, who earlier said Duterte would be unable to make it, said the chief executive made changes in his schedule to make sure he would be present in the historic event.
“The American government will give (them) back to me, then I will give (them) to the local executives and the local executives will turn (them) over to the rightful owner, the people of Balangiga,” Duterte said in his speech.
He said he would not attend the Catholic mass slated on that day, and would instead “float along the coastal shores of Samar.”
“I do not want to hear (Catholic) mass. I have heard all the masses in the world,” he said.
