Journey to a Muslim past

Two dailies of Dec. 17 carried the picture of the Taluksangay Mosque on the outskirts of Zamboanga City. I was so thrilled to see that picture. Taluksangay is the home of the Sama Banguinguis, the subject of my masteral thesis in Philippine history. Taluksangay was also home to me where I spent years doing my research. Nur Misuari found protection in Taluksangay also. Taluksangay is a small islet of 8.3668 hectares surrounded by mangroves 20 kilometers from Zamboanga City.

It is in this islet where the Sama Banguinguis led by the Nuño family were resettled after their exile by the Spaniards in 1858 to Isabela Province, from their island, Balanguingui, located just below Basilan in the island municipality of Tongkil, Sulu.

Nuño in 1880 selected Taluksangay for its location, being adjacent to smaller islands thereby protected from storms and gigantic waves. Its name is derived from the words "Taluk" and "Sangay." Taluk means violet and sangay means a peaceful docking place. Violet is the color of the Banguingui tribe.

Let me tell you the story of the Sama Banguinguis of Balanguingui Island, now settlers of the progressive Taluksangay islet. But first the irony of life! The child of a captive grandmother who was the wife of the fiercest "pirate" of the south, baptized and educated by a Catholic priest, founded the greatest Islamic Center of Taluksangay.

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During the Spanish regime in the 1830s, this group of islands was ruled by a powerful leader with well-fortified forts. He was Panglima Taupan, a Moro chieftain of the Sama tribe. The Sama Banguinguis defied Spanish authority with vigor, engaging in the slave raiding of human beings on the seashores (who, of course, were Christians) and trading them in Southeast Asia. It was the most profitable livelihood of the times as it is today. Various Spanish military expeditions to subjugate the Sama Moros in Balanguingui Island ended in futility. Every time the Spanish attackers fled defeated. The Banguingui natives were fierce and tenacious fighters. In fact, in 1838 their women were allowed to carry guns! What liberated women – they were trusted by their men to aid in the defense of their tribe. When I went there by boat which took eight hours from Zamboanga City, the women were but half of the tribe’s present population, just 12 of them.

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In 1848 Governor General Narciso Claveria requested three steam war vessels to subjugate them. The first of its kind, they arrived in the Philippines from England. He himself headed the naval expedition of these three steam warships, sailboats, transport brigs with several hundred men and attacked the Balanguingui fortifications.

Panglima Taupan with his bravest warriors were away trading in Borneo. Climbing over coal and stone walls, Claveria’s men attacked and captured the Samas in their four forts. All the women and children, who were left behind and who had not killed themselves like the others, were brought to Zamboanga City.

When Panglima Taupan returned, he found his settlement deserted and burned to the ground. Worst of all, his wives were missing. Years later the Sama prisoners from Zamboanga were transferred to Tondo and Cavite and much later to Fort Santiago and finally in 1866 exiled to the Cagayan Valley. Thus marked the greatest punishment, the diaspora of these Muslim captives, seafarers of the south, forced to till the soil as ignorant farmers in Isabela up north. The brave Panglima in the meantime did not despair and continued his raids.

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Family history has it that Taupan’s missing pregnant wife gave birth to a son in Ilocos and was baptized Antonio dela Cruz. But my archival research says he was already a half-grown boy when he was transported to Cagayan Valley so he was never born in captivity. Then again Taupan made six frustrating trips in search of his wife to the Visayas via Mindoro. In anger, Taupan cut off the ears of one Bisayan who could not give him any information.

On his seventh trip, Taupan headed directly for the Ilocos provinces landing in Vigan where the natives helped him locate the Sama Banguingui captives. Taupan’s emissary, going via Aparri, found the young Dela Cruz by then Christianized, a 10-year-old boy, orphaned and residing in Isabela. Taupan and his son, according to this legend, finally met in Vigan.

Family oral history says Taupan made his son promise that should he (Taupan) fail to free the Banguinguis in Isabela his son should bring them to Mindanao where they could live together as one people, as Muslims.

Taupan eventually fell ill, a victim of a smallpox epidemic, and died in Vigan. Family memories wane at this point.

Actually my archival hunt left me with an allergy and blackened hands from the dust, but never mind. It brought me to Taupan’s son, Antonio dela Cruz, in Cavite where he served as a sacristan to a friar who educated him in the Spanish ways before he was transported to Isabela with the group of Samas.

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A s a young man in Isabela, he requested his banishment to be lifted. He was allowed to go to Basilan to Christianize the Muslims. It was while he was among his own people that as the son of the defiant nakoda he vowed to abide by the pledge he made to his father. Dela Cruz studied the Qur’an and decided to stay in Buhilebung, Basilan. There, the Banguinguis could not own land. Antonio or Santon, his Spanish nickname, could not effectively supervise a growing population.

Meanwhile Governor Severo Ventura y Nuño used him as an escrebiente or secretary because Antonio was a Moro-Muslim who could speak and write Spanish. In gratitude for the Governor’s trust, Dela Cruz adopted the name of his patron, Nuño.

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Antonio dela Cruz Nuño sent his men to survey areas in Zamboanga where they could transfer. With permission from the Spanish government, the Banguinguis left Basilan to settle permanently in Taluksangay. This good fortune eventually led to the Isabela Samas’ transport to Taluksangay with the approval of Governor Frank Carpenter of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu which I luckily found among the Quezon papers.

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In Taluksangay in 1913, Hadji Antonio dela Cruz Nuño Maas, now renamed so after his trip to Mecca, petitioned the President of the United States through Major John Finley, Governor of the Moro Province in Zamboanga, to allow an imam from Turkey to teach the Muslims in Zamboanga. Major John Finley succeeded in bringing Mohammad Wajih, representative of Sheik ul Islam of Turkey, to the Philippines. Anywhere Mohammad Wajih went, thousands of Muslims met him. Due to the political power struggles, Mohammad Wajih was reported to the American Government for his overzealousness while dispensing with his religious activities. Mohammad Wajih was deported back to Turkey by the American government.

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After the death of Hadji Antonio dela Cruz Nuño Maas in 1918, his nephew, Hadji Abdullah Nuño, presided over the religious affairs of Taluksangay. He followed the footsteps of his uncle-father being an adapted son and reconstructed the old mosque in 1953. Eventually Abdullah’s son Hadji Jainudin Nuño spearheaded the Islamic Center of Taluksangay.

Hadji Jainudin Nuno, my bapa, further renovated the mosque giving it its permanent site, so large, so elegant and imposing. The mosque is across the road from Bapa’s house which was by the sea. At 4 a.m. the call to prayer sounded so very loud I would cover my ears as I hid under the blanket for it was so cold too. Hadji Jainudin has since opened four madrasahs or Islamic schools in Taluksangay.

To see it is to realize what respect for history, love of ancestors and determination can achieve. The Samas have a home in a well-planned village that looks different every year, with so much improvements. More homes, more children, running water, hanging bridges, fish, bakawan and agar-agar cultivation have given good economic returns through the Nuños, patriarchs of the Samas.

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A document in the Philippine National Library recognizes the Nuño lineage descending from "a famous Moro pirate whose activities were broken up by Spanish forces when small gunboats came into use." The letter from Governor Frank Carpenter speaks for itself.

At that time the Spanish forces undertook a surprise attack on the private stronghold of the Hadji Abdulla Nuño’s father on the island of Balanguingui. The chief himself happened to be absent at the time but his entire family including Hadji Abdulla Nuño, then but a half-grown boy, and large number of retainers were taken captives by the Spanish and were shipped to Cavite where they were held prisoners for sometime. During this period Hadji Abdulla Nuño was used by the Commandant of the Cavite Naval Station as a houseboy and compelled to submit to Christian baptism.

Later the entire lot of Moro captives were turned by the Spanish government to the Compania Tabacalera and shipped to the latter’s hacienda in Cagayan Valley near the town called Tumauini. After 18 years of captivity there Hadji Abdulla Nuño secured permission from the Spanish Governor General to return with some of his people to Zamboanga. Shortly afterwards he and the others made a pilgrimage to Mecca which conferred on them the titles of Hadji. Returning to the Philippines they established under Hadji Abdulla Nuño’s leadership at Taluksangay – where there gradually collected a group of Arab, Malay and Moro Sheiks and Hadjis – by far the most important and assertive center of Mohammedan propaganda and determined opposition to the development of the policies of the government since the beginning of the American occupation.

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In 1992 I requested the National Historical Institute to install a historical marker declaring the Taluksangay mosque the oldest mosque in the Zamboanga Archipelago to which Director Serafin Quiason acceded.

Hadji Jainudin Nuño, the father of Sama Banguinguis of the 20th century, was the happiest man at the recognition of his ancestors’ religious propagation by the national government. I was very blessed to have embarked on this eight-year search through Fr. Hilario Lim’s insistence. It was as though Panglima Taupan wanted me to ply the seas with him, which I did, and write about his descendants, his people in Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Taluksangay and Isabela.