Weak and/or unclear

Call it wrong timing that would evoke conspiracy theories, but last week’s move of the Sulu Sultan’s hundreds of followers of going to the coastal town of Lahad Datu in Sabah cannot just be ignored. At least, it has revived and brought into focus once more this long festering issue about our country’s territorial claim to that part of Borneo.

To be sure, most of us including myself thought that this Sabah claim has already been settled or has become moot and academic. In fact even the present P-Noy administration has not given too much importance to this claim. Nothing much has been reported on whether it has been part of the issues discussed in the recent peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that culminated in the signing of a peace agreement.

There are indeed valid and very material questions that should have been taken up during the recent peace talks with the MILF. Among the more important ones are these questions raised by a person deeply involved in this Sabah issue, Commodore Jose G. Lansangan Jr. AFP (Ret.) MNSA, chairman emeritus of the National Defense College of the Philippines Foundation Inc. In his paper on the “Sabah Claim” culling details from the doctoral dissertation of Dr. Nestor Nisperos entitled “The Sabah Question: Why the Policy,” retired Commodore Lansangan asked the following:

“In all these MILF-GRP discussions where does the Sultan of Sulu come into the picture especially in the discussion of the ancestral domain? Is Sabah part of the ancestral domain? Where does the Sabah claim come into the MILF-GRP equation? Is this the reason for Malaysia’s hosting of the talks, to protect their interest? Is it not awkward for the Philippines that Malaysia is hosting the peace negotiations when RP still has to settle the Sabah issues with Malaysia eventually? What concessions are being earned by Malaysia by hosting the MILF-GRP talks? What sort of coercive influence may be exerted by Malaysia on the two panels, such as “no mention of the Sabah question? What is the US interest in the talks? It should be recalled that the US did not lift a finger to help the Philippines during the Sabah talks with the British Government in 1962-63.”

Indeed in 1962, the Philippine Government under the leadership of then President Diosdado Macapagal filed a formal claim on North Borneo, otherwise known as Sabah which was then in the process of becoming part of the Federation of Malaysia. For a big picture of this claim it would be best to recall its historical background detailed by Dr. Nisperos in his paper:

“Prior to the advent of western colonialism in Southeast Asia, the Sultanate of Brunei ceded to the Sultanate of Sulu, territory which amounted to a large part of modern-day Sabah, as a prize for Sulu military assistance during a civil war in the Sultanate of Brunei. With the subsequent incursions of empire-builders into the region, however, a weak and declining Brunei Sultanate evidently disregarded the earlier cession (to the Sultan of Sulu) and granted the same territory to the European adventurer named  Baron von Overbeck. But since the Sultan of Sulu effectively controlled Sabah at the time, it became necessary for Overbeck to complement the Brunei grant with another agreement” (Agreement of January 1878). 

“The Agreement of January 1878 concluded between Sulu Sultan Jamalul Alam and von Overbeck proved to be a controversial one. The British government, which obviously coveted the territory, maintained that the agreement was a cession, which the Philippine Government maintained was simply a lease.” It appears, however, that the Agreement of 1878 seemed to indicate that it constituted a long term lease to von Overbeck and Alfred Dent, private persons, who subsequently organized a chartered company under the British Empire.

“In 1888, after the British North Borneo Company was incorporated to administer Sabah, the British Government tightened its control by formally extending protection over the territory it subsequently referred to as the “State of North Borneo”. It is important to note that for the consumption of competing western colonial powers, Britain disavowed the company’s capacity to acquire the territory and maintained that sovereignty resided with Brunei and Sulu.” 

After the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1898 between the United States and Spain, Britain and the US delimited their interests in Borneo and Sulu. Under the Washington Convention of 1930, however, Sabah remained as a British protectorate.

The British Government saw the opportunity to grab Sabah as a colony when the status of the property was a bit vague from the 1898 Treaty of Paris wherein the Spanish Government ceded the Philippines to the United States but did not include Sabah. It was an opportunity to acquire the Sabah property and convert it from a protectorate status to a colonial one. Later, however, when there was a worldwide shrinking of colonies, the British must have felt awkward holding on to Sabah at a time when self-determination of colonies began to catch fire.

The emergence of new states and the changed political configuration of Southeast Asia, encouraged Britain to relinquish Sabah to Malaysia, while the Philippines made known its claim to sovereignty over the territory of Sabah. Thus, President Diosdado Macapagal who was very knowledgeable about the Sabah Question, agitated for renewed efforts to claim the property for the Sultan of Sulu and establish Philippine sovereignty over Sabah in 1962.”

But prior to this claim or in 1939, when the Sulu Sultanate seemed to have been divided by conflicting claims of rightful heirs entitled to receive the annual payments for the lease, the British North Borneo High Court named nine heirs entitled to receive the sum. As an orbiter dictum, the high court even stated that “the Philippine Government was the successor in sovereignty” of the Sultan.

It appears therefore that the Sabah claim is based on solid grounds. The various unanswered questions about this claim should have been discussed and settled during the MILF-GRP talks initiated by the P-Noy administration. So as of now, after all these years our stand on this issue is still either weak or unclear.

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