Izquierdo replaced Governor General Carlos Maria de la Torre some months before in 1871 and immediately rescinded Torre’s liberal measures and imposed his iron-fist rule. He was opposed to any hint of reformist or nationalistic movements in the Philippines. He was in office for less than two years, but he will be remembered for his cruelty to the Filipinos and the barbaric execution of the three martyr-priests blamed for the mutiny: Fathers Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora, later collectively called "Gomburza.”
