President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday that the return of the Balangiga bells should be credited to the Filipino people and not to any government officials, including him.

This as Duterte, who again slammed the Catholic church in a speech in Las Pi?as City, said he would go to Eastern Samar for the ceremonial turnover only of the bells from the United States as he would not attend in the mass to be held in relation to the return of the bells in the church in Balangiga town.

"And for a part, the latest ruckus is the return of the Balangiga bell. Now let me be very clear on this, here and now. The credit of the return of the Balangiga does not belong to any worker or officials of government. The return of the bells were upon the demand of the Filipino people. Nobody but nobody should ever claim success for that," he said.

Duterte acknowledged that the bells, which served as a war booty during the US-Philippine war in 1901, belong to the Catholic Church.

"Well, it’s a property of the Catholic faith --- the Roman Catholic faith. But I’d like to order the protocol now. It's only now that it flashes to my mind. There’s going to be a High Mass. I will not be there. I will just float along the coastal shores of Samar," he said.

"It’s going to be like this. The American government will give it back to me. Then I will give it to the local executives. And the local executives will turn it over to its rightful owner, the people of Balangiga and the priest there. That's theirs. So I'm only up to that (point). I do not want to hear the mass. I have heard all the masses in the world," Duterte said.

Duterte has been critical to the Catholics church, which has been consistently raising concern over his bloody war on drugs.

The Balangiga bells arrived in Manila on December 11 from the US after 117 years. Celerina Monte/DMS