Filipino WWII vets
keeps promise, rings bell at Balangiga memorial
By ROSE SAN DIEGO
September 30, 2015
CHICAGO – In a first
time event in the US, bells chime at a Memorial led by Filipino WWII
veterans along with members from the Fil-Am community assembled at a
local American Legion in a Post Everlasting program, remembering the
fallen during the Balangiga battle in Samar the morning on September
28, 1901.
The names of the forty-eight
soldiers killed in action from the roster of US Army Company - 9th
Infantry Regiment were read following a strike from a miniature bell.
A separate list containing
many names of the villagers residing in the surrounding barangays on
that day was folded, in hopes that one day the actual 28 names of the
towns people killed would also come to be known. Then the pieces of
papers with the names were collected, ripped and a match was used to
ignite the internal flame. US veterans organizations use this symbolic
ritual to commemorate the fallen. The chime echoed a historic memory
after each named read.
We should not only be
impressed, but grateful of a promise kept from our elder WWII vets.
The circumstances of that September 28th day is seldom mentioned in
our own news media, even representation from the Philippine Consulate
Chicago Officers, an extended arm of our Philippine Government
designated to work with the Fil-Am community was absent from this
historic event. The WWII vets produced a program that not only brings
recognition to better foreign policy of our two countries, while
showcasing a crucial time in our history never to be forgotten.
The healing process must
begin somewhere, and from someone and it took our nations heroes of
1942 who knows the ugly face of war. The event accomplished its
mission displaying a solemn way of forgiveness from the heart that
ended tragically for both Americans and Filipinos on its anniversary,
now 114 years ago.