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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-15/mariano-llanera-sm.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Mariano Llanera" />
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(Mariano Llanera)
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Llanera studied briefly at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran. Although his formal education was limited, he became a cabeza de barangay. He later served for two terms as capitan municipal of his hometown.


He was initially sympathetic to the Spaniards. He once prevented his townsmen from lynching a Spanish lieutenant.


His transformation into a fiery revolutionary was derived from his membership in the Masonry. The Spanish parish priest promptly accused him of being a subversive. Most of his property was confiscated. His house was even stripped of furniture.


He joined the Katipunan and was quick to stir the other towns to his cause. He had his own banner: a white skull drawn above two crossed bones and the letter K in a field of black.


He mustered about 3,000 men in the assault of the San Isidro Spanish garrison. Only a few were armed with guns. The rest had bolos and sharpened bamboo stakes. They wore red bands around their
heads and marched to the martial music furnished by the musikong bumbong. For three days, beginning on September 2, 1896, they laid seige on San Isidro. The town would have fallen but for the arrival of a Spanish reinforcement of some 200 men armed with rifles.

As they were withdrawing, he managed to fatally shoot a captain of the Guardia Civil.


Llanera participated in sporadic encounters in the provinces of Bulacan, Tarlac, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija.


The American historian John Taylor said that he "raided along the railroad and the towns about Manila, plundering and burning."



On December 1, 1896, he scored two successive victories in the battles of Baling Kupang and Sibul in the province of Bulacan.


To force him to surrender, the Spaniards resorted to massacres of non-combatants in several towns in Nueva Ecija. His house was demolished, his pregnant wife abducted and incarcerated together with some relatives. She gave birth inside the Bilibid prison.


In January 1897, the Spaniards attacked his forces in Bulacan, compelling him to take refuge in Nueva Ecija. Most of his followers surrendered, enticed by the amnesty proclamation. In disgust he threatened death to those who desisted from the struggle.


After the death of Andres Bonifacio, Llanera was designated Lieutenant General in the assembly held in Puray, Montalban creating the Department Government of Central Luzon. Generals Mamerto Natividad and Isidoro Torres served under him. He had a chance to join at one time the forces of Aguinaldo in harassing the Spaniards in Bulakan and Nueva Ecija.


He distinguished between Spaniards and other foreigners, assuring Mr. Scott, manager of an Anglo-American-owned rice mill, that the revolutionists had no enmity against them.


In October 1897, Llanera and the other revolutionary leaders assembled in Biak-na-bato, San Miguel de Mayumo, Bulacan where Aguinaldo established his seat of government. He was among
the signatories of the Biak-na-bato Constitution drawn up on November 1. Representing the army, he signed on November 5 the terms for the peace agreement Pedro Paterno was to present to Governor General Primo de Rivera. He helped prepare the schedule of activities for the implementation of the peace pact. He went into exile with Aguinaldo in Hongkong.


Since both parties looked at the pact as an opportunity to refurbish their strength, the truce was soon shattered. The exiles returned. Llanera was commissioned to organize the provincial and
municipal governments in Nueva Ecija. He was also. involved in the zoning of the province into military districts. By June 20, 1898 he was in command of the first zone composed of the towns of San Isidro, Cabiao, San Antonio, Jaen, Gapan and Peliaranda. On July 21, he was appointed General of Division with station in Nueva
Ecija.


He styled himself dictador provincial. He restored order by issuing circulars to the town heads. The functions of civil, military and religious officials were clearly defined. He requested that he be furnished a listing of arms and men capable of bearing them, the total finances in their treasury and the stock of palay.


When the Filipino-American War broke out, he was Commandante Superior of the first battalion of Nueva Ecija and was stationed in the 4th zone of Manila by General Antonio Luna. In the defense of the towns of San Isidro, Gapan and Cabiao drawn by Aguinaldo on May 12, 1899, the command was entrusted to him.

November 9, 1855: Mariano Llanera a revolutionary general was born in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija