“Raiders of the Sulu Sea” A Historiography Documentary film focusing on
Zamboanga City depicting how the Spaniards defended the city with the Fort
Pilar as Spain’s last stronghold and bastion of defense and economic
expansion in the South of the Philippines . It depicts the Southeast Asian
flourishing free trading in the area and the adverse effects and
repercussions when Europeans such as the English, Dutch and Spanish who
wanted to control the economy as well to colonize and Christianize.
The film focuses on the slave raiding as retaliation on colonizers- the
sophisticated ancient maritime vessels such as the Lanong, Garay and the
Salisipan and tools of war such as the Barong, Kris, and the Kampilan and
the well organized forces that is launched for slave raiding the coasts of
Mindanao Visayas, and Luzon, between July to October called as the Pirate
wind “ Pirate monsoon”
It also focused on the fate of the Captured Balangingi Leader called
Panglima Taupan and his family who eventually was exiled to the north of
Luzon in Cagayan, and was made to work in the Tobacco Plantation- and his
descendants who went back to Zamboanga and settled in the outskirts of
Taluksangay with the surname Dela Cruz Nuno- Maas Nuno, the ancestor of the
present Nuno clan of Zamboanga.
Art Historian Icelle Gloria D. Borja- Estrada together with Dr. Samuel Tan
and Margarita Cohuangco and other International Asian Historians contributed
to the success of this film Produced by Oakfilms3 based on Singapore for Q
channel, Discovery Channel and the National Geographic for International
Release.
An Illanun Pirate
Illanun War Boat
Pirate Weapons
Cover of the book "The Pirate Wind" Tales of the sea robbers of Malaya by
Owen Rutter
