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Mariano Noriel (March 16, 1864 - January 27, 1915) was a Filipino people general who fought during the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine–American War. He was member of the War Council that handled the case of Andres Bonifacio in 1897. He led Filipino advance troops before the American army landed in Intramuros in 1898.
Noriel was the president of the Council of War that tried the Bonifacio brothers (Andres Bonifacio and Procopio) in Naic and later in Maragondon in May 1897. Convicted of sedition and treason, Andres and Procopio were sentenced to death but Emilio Aguinaldo, president of the newly established Revolutionary Government, commuted the death verdict to banishment to the Pico de Loro Mountain in Maragondon. The commutation, however, was later withdrawn due to strong pressure from senior army officers and prominent citizens, including General Pio del Pilar and Noriel himself who believed that the two brothers, if allowed to live, would endanger the revolution.
The withdrawal of the commutation order was construed by Noriel, who was also in charge of the prisoners, as a go signal for the execution of the sentence, and so he had the two brothers shot to death a squad of soldiers under Lazaro Macapagal on May 10, 1897.
Aguinaldo, in the book A Second Look at America, which he co-authored with Vicente Albano Pacis, claims that his withdrawal of the commutation order did not mean immediate implementation of the death verdict, that Noriel had misconstrued this and acted hastily. He says he wanted a little more time for a cooling-off period so that eventually the Bonifacio brothers would be forgiven and pardoned.Emilio Aguinaldo, Mga Gunita ng Himagsikan, Copyright by Cristina Aguinaldo Suntay, Manila, 1964Emilio Aguinaldo and Vicente Albano Pacis, A Second Look at America, New York, 1957, pp.25-26, This is in accord with Aguinaldo’s claimed humanist and compassionate character.
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