美国国家公共电台 NPR Philippines Duterte Praises 'Generous' Americans For Returning Church Bells

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now to the Philippines, where President Rodrigo Duterte, often a harsh critic of the United States, praised Americans today as generous for returning church bells stripped by U.S. forces in 1901. The town of Balangiga celebrated 1 the homecoming of their historic bells. NPR's Julie McCarthy was there, and she has this report.

JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE 2: Balangiga's iconic church bells were carted off his war booty and returned here resonating.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHURCH BELLS)

MCCARTHY: The last time these bills tolled 3 in Balangiga, the U.S. was the colonial power here. Local fighters had used the bells to signal an attack on the U.S. occupiers. The uprising turned out to be the bloodiest 4 defeat of Americans in the U.S.-Philippines war. Retaliation 5 orders rang out - kill and burn, american soldiers were told. And from the charred 6 Catholic Church of St. Lawrence the Martyr 7, the bells were seized as spoils of war.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PHILIPPINES RODRIGO DUTERTE: I share your happiness and joy today.

MCCARTHY: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte pulled the rope that tolled the smallest of the three bells arrayed in an outdoor auditorium 8. Earlier, Duterte had staunchly demanded that the Americans return the bells, reminding his countrymen of the role the U.S. played as colonizer 9. But there was no trace of hostility 10 today, only gratitude 11 and graciousness.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DUTERTE: The bells are returned. The credit goes to the American people and to the Filipino people.

MCCARTHY: Timothy Broglio, archbishop of U.S. armed forces, says the bells are a sign of solidarity 12 between the two countries.

TIMOTHY BROGLIO: It's also restoration of this property to the church so that these bells can continue to exercise the function for which they were first made, which is to call people to worship.

MCCARTHY: John Law, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Manila, said that all bells from other U.S. conflicts had been returned, save Balangiga's, an anomaly he acknowledged was wrong. Returning them, Law said...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JOHN LAW: Was quite simply the right thing to do.

MCCARTHY: Law noted 13 that the episode of the bells, 117 years long, had spanned the life of the U.S.-Philippine relationship. The people of Balangiga came out in droves to witness history coming full circle. Terencia Dunninghaus, a descendant of those who had battled the Americans a century ago, stood in front of the church that had lost and now won back its bells, tears welling in her throat.

TERENCIA DUNNINGHAUS: I'm so happy.

MCCARTHY: Crying tears of joy?

DUNNINGHAUS: Yeah, for how many years that - of waiting. It's already one century, but at long last, the bells come home, yeah. (Foreign language spoken).

MCCARTHY: For Terencia, the bells symbolize 14 all the ancestors who died in the struggle to make the Philippines free. As if on cue, the ceremony ended, and the sky was awash with birds, flights of them diving and circling the townsquare. They nest in its mahogany trees, one elderly gentleman said, adding, those are the spirits of the dead. Julie McCarthy, NPR News, Balangiga.