Remains of Gen. Simeon Ola re-interred in Albay

LEGAZPI CITY — President Arroyo went out of her hectic schedule yesterday to join Bicolanos in the "re-interment" in Guinobatan, Albay of the remains of Gen. Simeon A. Ola, the last Filipino general who surrendered to American forces on Sept. 25, 1903.

The President personally witnessed the transfer of Ola’s remains from the Guino—batan Catholic cemetery, where he was buried in 1952, to the town plaza where they were interred at the foot of his life-sized monument. Ola was a native of Mauraro in Guinobatan.

During a brief interaction with the local media at Venezia Hotel here, Mrs. Arroyo said she asked Albay Gov. Fernando Gonzalez to help draft the basis for her declaration of Sept. 25 every year as "Simeon Ola Day."

She recalled that her father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal, declared Sept. 25 as Gen. Ola Day in 1963.

Meanwhile, Dr. Erlinda Ola-Casan, Ola’s first granddaughter, described him as a "very simple yet a strict and disciplined man."

"He was very simple being so used to living in the hills most of his life. Yet he had all the traits of a general," she told reporters during the re-interment rites.

"This is a very great thing that has happened today in Bicolandia," she said. "It’s really a legacy that my grandfather had loved everyone."

Former provincial board member Art Osea authored two resolutions that were passed in recognition of Ola’s heroism.

One resolution called for the renaming of the regional police camp here as Camp General Simeon A. Ola, from the former Camp Bagong Ibalon.

The second resolution renamed the Jovellar-Guinobatan Road as Gen. Simeon Ola Highway. — With Celso Amo