Symbolic handover ceremony: Officials inspecting the bells of Balangiga after their arrival at Villamor Air Base in Pasay, Metro Manila. (Below) Balangiga residents posing with one of the bells following the handover ceremony. — Reuters/AP
Manila: Church bells seized from the Philippines by the United States as war trophies over a century ago were returned in a bid to turn the page on a difficult chapter between the historical allies.
Returning the three so-called Balangiga bells meets a decades-old demand from the former US colony at a time when the two nations’ ties have been rattled by President Rodrigo Duterte’s pivot to China.
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