The Albay insurrection was the worst one I had to deal with during Governor Taft's administration as Governor of the Philippines. This was the insurrection headed by Simeon Ola. The first appearance of this man Ola in the official reports of the Philippine Government in connection with the Albay disturbances of 1902-3 is in the report of the colonel commanding the constabulary for the district which included Albay, Col. H. H. Bandholtz, dated June 30, 1903. [417] This report contains a sort of diary of events for the year preceding the date of it. An entry for October 28, 1902, begins: Early this month negotiations were opened with Simeon Ola, chief of the ladrones in this province, with a view of inducing him to surrender. Think of this great government negotiating with the leader of a band of thieves who were openly and flagrantly defying its authority! The entry proceeds: After many promises and conferences extending over a period of forty days, during which hostilities were suspended, Ola broke off negotiations and withdrew his entire force and a large number of additional recruits that he had secured during the armistice. Before Ola finally surrendered he is supposed to have had a total command ranging at various times from a thousand to 1500 men. And I think Colonel Bandholtz must have had in the field opposed to him, first and last, at least an equal number of native forces. Ola also makes an official reappearance in the report of the Governor of Albay Province for 1904. [418] It there appears that reconcentration was begun in Albay as part of the campaign against Ola and his forces, in March, 1903, and continued until the end of October of that year. Says this report of the Governor of Albay concerning reconcentration: Naturally, the effect of this unusual volume of persons in a limited area was disease and suffering for want of food and ordinary living accommodations. The Governor does not say how large the "unusual volume of persons" was that was herded into the reconcentration zones, nor does he furnish any mortality statistics. Nobody kept any. How much there was of the awful mortality and "clouds of vampire bats softly swirling out on their orgies over the dead," that Senator Bacon's army friend correspondent encountered in Samar does not affirmatively appear. The number of people affected by reconcentration in Albay and an adjacent province that caught the contagion of unrest and had to be given similar treatment, was about 300,000. [419]