Backroom deals?

Busy with ongoing efforts to locate the missing Malaysia Airlines jet with 239 lives on board, Prime Minister Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak – to his credit – came to Manila yesterday to grace and witness the historic signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro, or CAB for short. Prime Minister Najib took a short break from direct participation in the multi-nation search to find the ill-fated Malaysian flag carrier MH 370 that vanished more than two weeks ago.

The Malaysian jet plane is believed to have crashed somewhere in southern portion of the Indian Ocean near Australia. For all we know, the Malaysian Prime Minister’s chartered plane perhaps may have even made over flight on the possible crash area going to Manila. But the Indian Ocean is out of the way.

As promised to President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III, Prime Minister Najib flew in and out Manila just for this occasion. He came here upon the personal invitation of President Aquino who flew all the way to Kuala Lumpur to make his own state visit there last February 27-28. Actually, it was the second time Prime Minister Najib came here to lend his presence to a similar occasion.

This was in recognition of Malaysia’s important role as facilitator of peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (GPH-MILF) since 2001. As third party broker, Malaysia hosted the peace talks alternately held in Kuala Lumpur and Manila. Malaysia is also leader of the International Monitoring Team observing the GPH-MILF ceasefire.

 Mr. Najib first visited the Philippines last October 14-15, 2012 to also witness the signing of the framework draft of the CAB. The latest documents signed yesterday included the five annexes that detail the implementation of the CAB. Najib met behind closed doors with President Aquino to briefly discuss matters of mutual concern between the Philippines and Malaysia before the signing ceremony was held at Malacañang yesterday.

We have no way of knowing what the two leaders discussed. But we can speculate this included the matter of the still missing Malaysian jet. President Aquino had earlier extended the sympathy of the Filipinos for the tragic incident after the Prime Minister announced satellite results showing the possible crash of MH 370 at the depths of Indian Ocean.

Najib’s coming here for the CAB signing would surely endear him more to P-Noy for such show of support to the latter’s peace legacy to Mindanao. In fact, in his speech yesterday, P-Noy said: “The Filipino people will be forever indebted to Malaysia.”

We have no official word yet what were discussed during the Palace meeting of P-Noy and Prime Minister Najib. So we can only speculate on whatever backroom deals of the unsigned kind took place inside?

We could not afford though to ignore skeptics and cynics to naturally raise concern on the possible quid pro quo of the completion of the CAB with our country’s long-standing claims on Sabah as contested by Malaysia.

It is no empty talk that Malaysia’s mediator role in the forging of CAB is not without any strings attached.

Before P-Noy ended his state visit to Kuala Lumpur, Mr. Najib took the occasion to turn over to him official documents related to Malaysia’s territorial claims over Sabah. At their joint press conference held at the Putrajaya, Prime Minister Najib disclosed he had given these documents to President Aquino to bring them back home for study. So upon his arrival statement in Manila that same day, President Aquino announced he would order a new study on our country’s Sabah claim using the documents that Najib gave him.

It would do well for us to remember  the signing of the 2012 Framework draft, the late Sultan of Sulu Jamalul Kiram III and family members were among those invited and who gladly attended the Palace rites  to demonstrate their support to the peace process in Mindanao. But to their dismay, the ailing Sultan Jamalul found out that a letter he earlier wrote and sent to President Aquino – seeking his intercession about the Sabah claim of the heirs of the Sultan – had apparently been lost in the presidential mail.

A few months later, family members of Sultan Jamalul took up arms in March 2013 to force their proprietary claims on land in Lahad Datu in Sabah. Among other grievances, the Kirams deplored the Malaysian government pays them a measly annual rent of P75,000 for a 30,000-square-mile property they inherited centuries ago.

For several days, there was bloody fighting between Malaysian police and the armed family members and followers of the Sultan who were being driven out from their occupied lands in Sabah. For this, Prime Minister Najib himself came under fire from his critics in Kuala Lumpur.

To appease and convince the Kirams to peacefully get out of Lahad Datu, President Aquino formed last year a study group of legal and history experts led by the Department of Justice to look into the Sabah ownership and proprietary claims of the heirs of the Sultan. Where is that study now?

Up to the last moment, official spokesmen of the Palace insisted they invited to attend yesterday’s signing rites for the CAB the successor of the Sultan of Sulu, Datu  Esmail Strattan Kiram (Sultan Jamalul ll), or his designated representative. The invitation was supposedly send “through email.”

Is this a sick joke, after the Palace lost the late Sultan’s snail mail? Sadly, the more modern email also failed to reach them. According to the official spokesman Abraham Idjirani of the Sulu sultanate, none of the Sultan’s family got any Palace invitation, whether by email or snail mail.       

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Mea culpa. My good friend Jess Paredes texted me early Wednesday morning to call attention to an item that appeared in my column that day. I inadvertently mentioned a wrong date of “March, 2010” when the administration of former President Joseph Estrada forged a local peace agreement with Panay-based (Aklan, Antique, Iloilo) as well Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental communist insurgent groups. The correct date should have been Dec. 6, 2000.