First posted on Saysay Bikol FB page, February 14, 2022. The author, Ruben Jeffrey A. Asuncion, is a regular contributor to the FB page of Saysay Bikol, a civic organization of historians, educators, and cultural heritage advocates based in Naga City.
Albaynon revolutionary leader Simeon Ola died nn February 14, 1952. He was interred in his banwa of Guinobatan, one of Albay’s centers of resistance against the Americans (1899 – 1902).
He was born in Ilawod, Guinobatan on September 2, 1865, in a family of somewhat comfortable means. Dropping out of his studies at the Seminario in Nueva Caceres, Ola then joined a chapter of the Katipunan organized by Jose Glicerio Delgado, an emissary deployed to Bikol by Andres Bonifacio. With Spanish sovereignty crumbling further in 1898, Ola was assigned the task of escorting out the Franciscan friars from Albay. As to be inferred from a biographer, this assignment may have been made easier by Ola’s good ties with the priests. However, Ola would meet trouble with some local principalia after fulfilling his task of “lead(ing) the men escorting the convoys that carried the Revolutionary Army’s funds.” Ola was one of the people imprisoned on charges of plotting against local officials. Also dragged into the plot was a cousin of Ola, Don Jose Arboleda. The second brush he had with the principalia was when Cirilo Jaucian, after being elected as the presidente municipal (“mayor”) of Guinobatan, accused him of having “laid a heavy hand” on him. Ola was harassed by Jaucian and even had his own house in his native banwa burned under mysterious circumstances.
In January 1900, Ola became a captain and was assigned by Gen. Vito Belarmino to regain Legazpi. Sharpshooters under Ola’s command were to help the Sandatahanes of Guinobatan who were led by Col. Engracio Orense and Jose Arboleda. They would assault Legazpi in the first days of February 1900, before retreating to the forest. In the planned retreat, Arboleda’s men were to be in the rear, as assigned by Ola. The assault pushed through. However, as the Albaynons retreated from Legazpi, this plan was not followed; Arboleda moved his men to the right flank of Ola’s unit. The attack failed, the Albaynons lost heavily in the battle, and Ola’s men eventually moved toward the base of the Mayon Volcano. Ola’s cousin and fellow officer in the revolutionary forces, Jose Arboleda, was killed by bayonets during the fierce battle. As Elias Ataviado narrated the aftermath of the battle:
The forces of Ola returned to Bunga and Arimbay, after a short rest and a noonday meal. They busied themselves with the sad and painful task of burying their dead comrades and bringing the wounded, in litter and hammocks, to their base camp in Malabog until late in the evening.
Ola tried again to make a victorious attack against the Americans. However, he was defeated once more in Binogsacan, Guinobatan, Albay. With superior American military might firmly in place in the towns and urban areas, and the eventual surrender of the main Filipino military commander in Albay, Vito Belarmino, on July 4, 1901, the only viable option left to the Bikolnons was guerilla warfare. By the middle of 1902, Ola was able to establish a small resistance force in Albay.
James Blount, an American military officer-turned judge in Albay, made a generally derisive comment on Ola when he described him as a “sorry scamp of some shrewdness.” He generally played down the importance of Ola’s participation, saying he was just a leader of “this Albay insurrection,” instead of recognizing him as one of the many Bikolnons who kept on with the continuing anti-American resistance despite the continuous defeats of the Filipinos. Such was the degree of resistance by the Albaynons that Blount also termed it as the worst revolt he had handled in his stint. In this respect, Blount had some basis to say so. In 1903, Ola led two separate, major attacks in Albay province against a Constabulary garrison in Oas and another garrison of the Philippine Scouts. However, with the offensive led by Col. Harry Bandholtz, the resistance gradually weakened. Eventually, through the mediation of Don Ramon Santos — by then the municipal president of Guinobatan — Ola surrendered to Albay Gov. Arlington Betts and Col. Bandholtz. His capitulation on September 25, 1903 was “a full year and five months” after the surrender in Batangas of Gen. Miguel Malvar. Although Ola was tried and sentenced to a thirty-year jail term, he would be pardoned.
Ola himself would enter American-period politics, having also spent many years in his hometown as its municipal president. He served as Guinobatan’s mayor from 1910-1919.
Ola’s memory is being perpetuated by a province-wide holiday in Albay, the renaming in 1991 of the police headquarters, and a museum that also featured (among others) his translation of Jose Rizal’s “Mi Ultimo Adios.”
The header image features The Battle of Binogsacan (Guinobatan, Albay), a historical art exhibited at the Gen. Simeon Ola Shrine and Museo de Guinobatan.
References:
Ataviado, Elias. The Philippine Revolution in the Bikol Region (Narrative of the Philippine Revolution in the Province of Albay). Volume Two. New Day Publishers. 2011
Blount, James. The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912. G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1913.
Dy, Christian. Simeon Ola. Bansay Bikolnon Biography Series. Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018.
Ostria Ola, Fausto. “Gen. Simeon Ola.” Gen. Simeon Ola – Guinobatan Tourism (wordpress.com). Posted June 28, 2016.
Philippine Daily Inquirer. “Ola, not Malvar, was last general to surrender, say sons.” Ola, not Malvar, was last general to surrender, say sons | Inquirer News. Posted September 22, 2016.
About the author:
RUBEN JEFFREY ASUNCION is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines – Los Baños. He is greatly interested in Bikol and other local histories and is personally researching on the history of Bulan, Sorsogon.