Beneath the ringing bells of Balangiga,
where the river bends like an old prayer
through fields of green and memory,
there lives a people
shaped by saltwater, storms, and survival.

We are children of the eastern wind,
born where the Pacific first greets the dawn,
where coconut trees bow before typhoons
yet rise again beneath the sun.

We are fishermen
casting hope upon restless tides.
We are farmers
whose feet know the language of mud and rain.
We are mothers stirring coconut milk over firelight,
grandfathers beneath weathered nipa roofs
telling stories older than the road home.

And the bells—
the old church bells—
have witnessed everything.

They remember
September 28, 1901.

They remember the morning
when grief descended upon the town
like thunder over dark water.

They remember the smoke.
The gunfire.
The cries carried through shattered streets.
The fear that clung to the air
like ash after flame.

The earth remembers where blood once fell.
The river remembers the names
history almost washed away.
Even the rain remembers.

Yet Balangiga endured.

For we are Waray—
people of storm and sea,
with hearts like bamboo:
bending in the fiercest winds,
never breaking.

Typhoons may tear our roofs away,
floodwaters may swallow our fields,
sorrow may visit generation after generation—
yet still,
at dawn,
someone sweeps the yard.
Someone lights the cooking fire.
Someone plants again.

This is who we are.

Not merely survivors,
but rebuilders of what was broken.

Our resilience is quiet.
It lives in calloused hands
and humble homes.
In shared meals when there is little.
In laughter echoing after hardship.
In the faith that tomorrow, somehow,
the sun will rise again over Samar.

And when the bells of Balangiga ring now,
they no longer ring only for tragedy.

They ring for remembrance.
For dignity.
For the unyielding spirit
of a people history could not erase.

Balangiga—
where sorrow became strength,
where memory became courage,
where the people,
like the sea itself,
continue returning to the shore
again and again,
unbroken beneath the rising light.

Written by:  Carolina Evina