On page 403 of his book he says, speaking of Governor Taft and disorder in the province of Albay which arose in 1902–1903:—
“He did not want to order out the military again if he could help it, and this relegated him to his native municipal police and constabulary, experimental outfits of doubtful loyalty, and, at best, wholly inadequate, as it afterwards turned out, for the maintenance of public order and for affording to the peaceably inclined people that sort of security for life and property, and that protection against semi-political as well as unmitigated brigandage, which would comport with the dignity of this nation.”
The facts as to these disorders are briefly as follows:—
In 1902 an outlaw in Tayabas Province who made his living by organizing political conspiracies and collecting contributions in the name of patriotism, who was known as José Roldan when operating in adjoining provinces, but had an alias in Tayabas, found his life made so uncomfortable by the constabulary of that province that he transferred his operations to Albay. There he affiliated himself with a few ex-Insurgent officers who had turned outlaws instead of surrendering, and with oath violators, and began the same kind of political operations which he had carried out in Tayabas, the principal feature of his work being the collection of “contributions.”
The troubles in Albay were encouraged by wealthy Filipinos who saw in them a probable opportunity to acquire valuable hemp lands at bottom prices, for people dependent on their hemp fields, if prevented from working them, might in the end be forced to sell them. Roldan soon lost standing with his new organization because it was found that he was using for his personal benefit the money which he collected.
About this time one Simeon Ola joined his organization. Ola was a native of Albay, where he had been an Insurgent major under the command of the Tagálog general, Belarmino. His temporary rank had gone to his head, and he is reported to have shown considerable severity and hauteur in his treatment of his former neighbours in Guinobatan, to which place he had returned at the close of the insurrection. Meanwhile, a wealthy Chinese mestizo named Don Circilio Jaucian, on whom Ola, during his brief career as an Insurgent officer, had laid a heavy hand, had become presidente of the town.
Smarting under the indignities which he had suffered, Jaucian made it very uncomfortable for the former major, and in ways well understood in Malay countries brought it home to the latter that their positions had been reversed. Ola’s house was mysteriously burned, and his life in Guinobatan was made so unbearable that he took to the hills.
Ola had held higher military rank than had any of his outlaw associates, and he became their dominating spirit. He had no grievance against the Americans, but took every opportunity to avenge himself on the caciques of Guinobatan, his native town.
Three assistant chiefs of constabulary, Garwood, Baker and Bandholtz, were successively sent to Albay to deal with this situation. Baker and Bandholtz were regular army officers. The latter ended the disturbances, employing first and last some twelve companies of Philippine scouts, armed, officered, paid, equipped and disciplined as are the regular soldiers of the United States army, and a similar number of constabulary soldiers. Eleven stations in the restricted field of operations of this outlaw were occupied by scouts. There were few armed conflicts in force between Ola’s men and these troops. In fact, it was only with the greatest difficulty that this band, which from time to time dissolved into the population only to reappear again, could be located even by the native soldiers. It would have been impracticable successfully to use American troops for such work.
Referring to the statement made by Blount[1] that Vice-Governor Wright made a visit to Albay in 1903 in the interest “of the peace-at-any-price policy that the Manila Government was bent on,” and the implication that he went there to conduct peace negotiations, General Bandholtz, who suppressed outlawry in Albay, has said that Vice-Governor Wright and Commissioner Pardo de Tavera came there at his request to look into conditions with reference to certain allegations which had been made.