The standoff in Sabah has become an international issue that has caught the interest of United Nations' (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who has asked Malaysia to refrain from attacking the forces of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III who are holed out in a corner of Sabah, a territory that he has a legitimate claim. But Malaysia has refused to listen to the UN because they know too well that Sabah is not really their territory.
This is where President Benigno "P-Noy" Aquino III should wake up and start believing that the Philippines do have a legitimate claim to this corner of North Borneo. P-Noy doesn't need a committee to look into this case. All he needs to do is to read the March 25, 1963 debate between Senator Lorenzo Sumulong who delivered a speech questioning the Philippine claim to North Borneo, which was filed by then President Diosdado Macapagal on June 25, 1962. I was still in first year high school when this happened.
Sen. Sumulong's privilege speech was rebutted point-by-point a few days later by Sen. Jovito R. Salonga. You can Google this report because it is too long to discuss it here. However it seems that the stand of P-Noy is uncannily similar or close to that of his grand uncle Sen. Lorenzo Sumulong. On the other hand, I'm not surprised that he is taking his grand uncle's position in Sabah. But it matters not what's the President's stand is on the Sabah issue… what matters is, is the Sultan's claim on Sabah the truth or not?
But somehow the Sabah issue was grabbed by that fellow "Rip Van Winkle" and put into a decade's long slumber. But now the Filipino nation just woke up and realized that this was a historical faux pas on the part of all the previous Philippine governments, and it is high time to get this case finally settled once and for all. If the UN says it is owned by Malaysia, then let's put an end to this claim. But if the UN says that Sabah belongs to the Philippines… then by all means, let's move to secure this territory.
In the meantime, P-Noy should be advised to help all Filipinos in the area because they are Filipino citizens. But ordering the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to go on a fault-finding mission in this very delicate time will only fuel more animosity with our Muslim brothers. This is P-Noy's golden opportunity to unify Christians and Muslims in this highly-diverse nation of ours. Alas, once again P-Noy is missing the boat. All he needs to do is sit down with Sultan Jamalul Kiram III. If he could sit down with Al Haj Murad, a Muslim rebel, he ought to be talking with the legitimate owner and Sultan of Sulu and of Sabah.
Bring Sabah claim to the ICJ!
Written by NESTOR MATA - MALAYA
Razak, in turning a deaf ear to the UN chief's call to peacefully end the one-month-old conflict and causing the merciless slaughter of 61 Filipino Muslims and innocent women and children (as of this writing), may well be held liable for using a "policy of genocide" before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
"We just finished writing another letter informing the United Nations that Malaysia is not complying with their call to peacefully end violence in Sabah," Sultan Kiram told a press conference the other day. "We want them to investigate this genocide. I don't know why they do not want a cease-fire. It's very un-Islamic!"
If this move by Kiram succeeds, political watchers of the Sabah crisis forecasted, it may well affect the chances of Razak, who is running a close race for re-election in the coming Malaysian elections against the opposition party Pakatan Rakyat's Anwar Ibrahim. And they say that's the reason Razak, whose popularity is waning, ordered the massive attacks in order to "gain political credits."
Actually, according to an international law expert, Razak's defiance of the UN chief's call for peace may lead to his being tagged an "international outlaw" for defying the UN's call for peace which, in the eyes of the international community is a violation of the Geneva Convention.
Other watchers of the Sabah conflict say that President Noynoy Aquino himself can't escape being blamed for the "colossal bungling" of the situation in Sabah, as it relates to the territorial claim of the Sulu sultanate and the Philippine government, as well as the mounting casualties there. Instead of complying with his mandated constitutional duty as president of the Republic to preserve its territories and the lives of its citizens, Christians and Muslims alike, he has instead ordered the filing of criminal charges against the Sulu sultan's followers who are our Muslim brothers.
Obviously, the same political watchers say, Aquino and his Cabinet officials, especially his secretary of foreign affairs and secretary of justice, lacked an understanding of the history of our Filipino Muslim brothers and the Philippine claim to Sabah. They and their Palace mouthpieces showed their "scandalous ignorance" about the Philippine claim to Sabah when they said that it was "dormant." They do not know, for instance, that it is their bounden duty "to preserve and safeguard the historical and legal rights of the government of the Republic of the Philippines arising from its claim to dominion and sovereignty over the territory of North Borneo."
Indeed, we have a law that upholds the sovereign rights of the Philippines over Sabah and unless it's repealed, President Aquino is mandated by his constitutional oath of office to exercise that sovereignty peacefully, and one way is for him to act quickly by filing a case over the territorial dispute before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), just like other bloody disputes over lands among our Asian neighbors which are now pending before the UN's ICJ. And once the ICJ acts on the Philippine claim to Sabah, it will hopefully put to an end an irritant between our country and Malaysia.
Instead, President Aquino continues to blame Sultan Kiram and his followers, led by his brother Rajah Muda Kiram, who are holed up somewhere in the jungles of Sabah, for destroying what he (Aquino) calls "good relations" with Malaysia, even as more Filipino Muslims are being slaughtered like a pack of animals in that northern territory of Borneo.
Our national honor does not mean that we must to go to war over Sabah, but it is the sworn duty of Aquino, as president of all the Filipino people, Christians and Muslims alike, to assert our country's sovereign rights to Sabah, and not Malaysia.
Mr. President, you must heed the UN Chief's call for a "peaceful resolution" of the situation in Sabah, and then go the UN's International Court of Justice and file our territorial claim against Malaysia, pronto!
