An Introduction from the Author “I have heard about people talk about “unknown wars”. I have often dismissed it as myths or someone’s overworked imagination. Then I heard about a small town in Samar that was burned to the ground and it’s people massacred. What started as curiosity turned into a journey that I never expected. I began asking people if they heard of the Balangiga Massacre during the Philippine-American War and they responded with puzzled looks on their faces as if I was speaking another language that they could not decipher. I dug into the recesses of my brain to try to remember if I came across the story in my history class. I could not remember. As we did our research, it was like opening a door with a tidal wave of information and emotions on the other side just waiting to explode. I realized that only a handful of books, history books for that matter, wrote about the massacre and that amazingly not a lot of people know about it. Anger, sadness, disbelief were only some of the emotions I felt throughout my journey of discovery. “How could a town burned to the ground and its people massacred go unnoticed in history? It happened almost a hundred years ago, why care now?” These are questions I wrestled with. At the end, I found myself talking to people about the Balangiga massacre as if I was on a mission. I have no pretensions of being a historian. I wrote this book to be able to tell a story. I collaborated with Filipino artists to create their interpretations and have these visuals tell the story. Rene Robles’ pastel paintings of the bells set the intensity of each pager. Papo de Asis, Rey Zipagan, Junn Roca, Rafael Maniago and Salvador Floriano gives each page its pulse… as we return to Balangiga” size: 12.5 x 10.25 inches copyright 1999; Hardbound |
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