Sabah is not for sale

Those supposed defenders of national interest we call our government officials? They’ll be the first to tell their constituents: Give up, go home. Because Sabah is not ours, and never will be, and the people leading the charge are disillusioned Don Quixotes, clinging to an empty title, obsessed with the grandeur of a dreamed-up past. 

But the Sultanate of Sulu is older than you, self-serving administration, and older than this republic. We were only formally inaugurated as the Philippine Republic on Jan. 23, 1899, whereas the Sultanate of Sulu has been in existence since the 15th century, long before our country had any semblance of the unity “gifted” to us by colonizers.

Indeed, according to historian and former UP President Onofre Cruz, even before the Spaniards arrived, the sultanates of Mindanao were already the most politically advanced in the archipelago, exemplifying characteristics of a modern state.

Thus, the Sultanate is not a myth, not a distortion of history. Their title, amidst the family’s dwindling capital and missing opulence, has historical basis and the weight of centuries  — something our government shouldn’t so high-handedly dismiss.

Now as far as the Sultanate’s claim to Sabah is concerned, historians and other experts can certainly provide a more nuanced explanation than me. In essence, however, there are three points I think everyone should keep in mind: 1) In the 16th century, the Sultanate of Brunei gave Sabah to the Sulu Sultanate as a war gift; 2) The 1900 Atlas de Filipinas conferred legal status for its cartographic accuracy by an international body, clearly delineated the territorial extent of the archipelago, which includes Sabah and the Scarborough Shoal, and; 3) The British North Borneo Company leased Sabah from the Sultanate in exchange for arms, the payment of which continues up to this day precisely because Sabah was never returned to Sulu.

In 1962, the Sultanate granted the government sovereign rights over Sabah, which means all of us, and not just our fellow Filipinos in Mindanao, have a stake in Sabah.

Between then and now, however, the legitimacy of our Sabah claim has been strained by political maneuvering and double-talk, foremost of which finds its roots in those “delicate” amendments to Article 1 of the 1973 constitution. Which, in not so many words, completely screwed us over. After all, it demanded no less than the squandering of our country’s advantage over Sabah, with former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir refusing to attend the ASEAN Summit in Manila and lend his support to then President Cory’s administration, unless she committed to amending Article 1.

And since we’re bombarded about theories regarding communists, ex-President Gloria Arroyo, and Pastor “Boy” Saycon, how about one where the current administration is involved?

In a public forum sponsored by the Moro-Christian Alliance and held last Tuesday, March 12, former DFA National Territory Division head Engr. Hermes Dorado traces the origin of our current troubles over Sabah to Aug. 21, 1983, the day former senator Ninoy Aquino was assassinated. According to Dorado, Aquino met with Mahathir before going back to the Philippines, although no records of the meeting officially exist.

Dorado says he “became privy to this bit of intelligence” from former ambassador and retired general Rafael Ileto, who was tasked to monitor Aquino’s movement as he confronted the Marcos dictatorship. “General Ileto indirectly confirmed that Ninoy Aquino asked for help from Mahathir in exchange for dropping the Sabah claim when he gains power,” Dorado revealed in his presentation.

After Aquino’s death, Malaysia continued to press their claim, using the shrewdness of diplomacy, thinly veiled threats, as well as economic leverage, to force the Constitutional Commission to drop our Sabah claim.

As Dr. Carol Araullo of BAYAN wryly noted during the forum, there’s no need to beat around the bush — where Sabah is concerned, Malaysia is a land grabber. And if the current administration sympathizes with the position of land grabbers, well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Today, we criminalize and label the Kiram family as terrorists and pretenders, putting them out of the public consciousness even as we laugh at their supposedly empty title and even emptier pockets. We side with Malaysia, because it’s the comradely thing to do, because we harbor an inferiority complex and colonial mentality so deep-seated, it extends to our neighbors in the Southeast Asian region. We shy away from confrontation because we are weak and disunited, and when they call us intruders because our Muslim brothers assert a legitimate claim over ancestral land, like the cowards we are, we run away with our tails between our legs, leaving the Sultanate and his Tausug fighters to hold the fort, or die trying.

Mr. Abraham Idjirani, an uncle of Princess Jancel Kiram and the secretary-general of the Sultanate of Sulu, says that he and his people are tired. They’ve been fending off claimants to their land for centuries, but cannot continue without the help of our government. Idjirani says that no, their followers did not go to Sabah to wage war, nor did the sultan ever incite them to war. But now that the fighting has started, their people would rather die than surrender totally and completely, as per President Aquino’s ultimatum.

Princess Jancel chokes back emotion as she describes the poverty down South, the lives lost in the standoff, and how peace has been a dream of the region for so long, she can’t imagine when it ever wasn’t.

So how do we fight? Legally, historically. The Sultanate of Sulu is now a private entity, and cannot endorse the Sabah claim to the United Nations on its own. To push for Sabah, we must endorse our claim as one sovereign nation. 

Because Sabah is the patrimony of the Filipino people, and is not for sale or for share.