Balangiga Massacre Memorial & Church Tour

The quiet town of Balangiga in Eastern Samar holds an outsized place in Philippine history. On 28 September 1901, during the Philippine-American War, local fighters launched a surprise attack on a U.S. infantry company at breakfast, killing dozens of American soldiers in what became known as the Balangiga Encounter, one of the worst single-day losses for the U.S. Army since Little Bighorn.

The American reprisal was brutal: General Jacob Smith's order to turn Samar into a howling wilderness led to the deaths of thousands of civilians. As war trophies, U.S. troops seized three church bells from the Church of San Lorenzo de Martir, igniting a dispute that lasted over a century. The famous Balangiga Bells were finally returned to the Philippines in December 2018 after 117 years and now hang once more in the town church.

This full-day tour visits the historic Church of San Lorenzo de Martir to see the returned bells, the Balangiga Encounter monument, and the sites where this pivotal episode unfolded. Your guide unpacks the full, complex story, the courage, the tragedy and the long road to the bells' homecoming, in a moving journey through a defining chapter of the nation's struggle for independence.