Territorial Claims of Philippines

A majority of Filipinos everywhere are wondering what this Sabah claim is all about. The Philippine history books, Malaysian’s probably too, have not mentioned about the Philippines’ stake on the northern part of the island of Borneo. On the other hand, the Malaysians maybe furious that there are a lot of attention now being focused to that part of the Malaysian federation to which they believe was theirs since the British handed the territory in 1963.

What we are trying here is to bring an insight to this dispute based on our researched of the various facts (or allegations) regarding this subject. As Filipino Americans, our main concern in bringing about this article is to tell that part of the history of the Philippines. Sabah is the northern part of Borneo. It is bordered by Sarawak on its southwestern side and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) to the south. Sabah has a coastline of approximately 800 to 900 miles and with the South China Sea in the west and north, the Sulu Sea in the northeast and the Celebes Sea in the east.

Sabah’s total land area is 76,115 sq km (29,388 sq miles). Sabah’s population is about 2. 5 million. It is 1,961 km from Hong Kong, 1,143 km from Manila, 1,495 km from Singapore, 1,678 km from Kuala Lumpur and 2,291 km from Taipei – note that it is nearer to Manila than Malaysia’s capital of Kuala Lumpur. North Borneo is much undeveloped and very rich in natural resources. One of the wealthiest oil producing countries is located in same island of Borneo, the tiny Sultanate of Brunei.

His Majesty Sultan Jamalul A’Lam, signed a treaty, under what he leased the territory of North Borneo to Gustavus von Overbeck, an Austrian who was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s consul-general in Hong Kong and to his British partner Alfred Dent, residing in London, as representatives of the British North Borneo Company, without giving away his sovereign rights, and for as long as they desire to use these coastlines.

Von Overbeck procured the necessary firearms and also promised to pay to His Majesty Jamalul A’Lam, his heirs and successors the sum of 5,000 dollars a year payable every year. On 22 April 1903 His Majesty Sultan Jamalul Kiram signed a document known “Confirmation of cession of certain islands”, under what he leased additional islands in the neighbourhood of the mainland of North Borneo from the island of Banggi to Sibuku Bay to British North Borneo Company. The sum 5,000 dollars a year payable every year increased to 5,300 dollars a year payable every year.

The key word in the both agreements was “pajak”, which has been translated by American, Dutch and Spanish linguists to mean “lease” or “arrendamiento” In 1906 and in 1920, the United States formally reminded Great Britain that North Borneo did not belong to the Crown and was still part of the Sultanate of Sulu. However, the British did turn Sabah into a Crown Colony. The Philippine Constitution of 1941 states that the national territory of the Philippines included, among other things, “all other areas which belong to the Philippines on the basis of historical rights or legal claims”.

Malaysia was federated in 16 September 1963. Even before Sabah was incorporated into Malaysia, the Philippines sent delegations to London reminding the British Crown that Sabah belonged to the Philippines. The Sultanate of Sulu was granted the north-eastern part of the territory as a prize for helping the Sultan of Brunei against his enemies and from then on that part of Borneo was recognized as part of the Sultan of Sulu’s sovereignty. 1878 lease was continued until the independence and formation of the Malaysian federation in 1963 together with Singapore, Sarawak and the states of Malaya.

As of 2004, the Malaysian Embassy to the Philippines had been paying cession/rental money amounting to US$1,500 per year (about 6,300 Malaysian ringgits) to the heirs of the Sultanate of Sulu. This is an act of British government before the federation and continued to the today’s government of Malaysia. Less than a decade later, the Sultanate of Sulu came under the control of Spain and was forced to sign a document giving all of the Sultan’s Properties in Palawan and Sulu — excluding Northern Borneo — to Spain. In 1885, Spain relinquished all of its claim to Borneo to the British in the Madrid Protocol of 1885.

In spite of that, in 1906 and 1920 the United States formally reminded Great Britain that Sabah did not belong to them and was still part of the Sultanate of Sulu on the premise that Spain never acquired sovereignty over North Borneo [see Madrid Protocol] to transfer all its claims of sovereignty over North Borneo to Great Britain on the Madrid Protocol of 1885. This is so because the Sultan of Sulu did not include his territory and dominion in North Borneo in signing the treaty of 1878 recognizing the Spanish sovereignty over “Jolo and its dependencies”. North Borneo was never considered a dependency of Jolo.

However, the British Government ignored the reminder and still annexed the territory of North Borneo as a Crown Colony on July 10, 1946. On September 12, 1962, during President Diosdado Macapagal’s administration (the father of the former Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo), the territory of North Borneo, and the full sovereignty, title and dominion over the territory were ceded by the then reigning Sultan of Sulu, HM Sultan Muhammad Esmail E. Kiram I, to the Republic of the Philippines. The cession effectively gave the Philippine government the full authority to pursue their claim in international courts.

The Philippines broke diplomatic relations with Malaysia after the federation had included Sabah in 1963 but probably resumed it unofficially through the Manila Accord. It was revealed in 1968 that Ferdinand Marcos was training a team of saboteurs on Corregidor for infiltration into Sabah but instead Marcos betrayed the saboteurs in an event known as Jabidah massacre. Marcos later decided to drop the claim, but the aggrieved Malaysians insisted on such an explicit, humiliating public renunciation that no Philippine president could meet their conditions.

Diplomatic ties were resumed in 1989 because succeeding Philippine administrations have placed the claim in the back burner in the interest of pursuing cordial economic and security relations with Kuala Lumpur. To date, Malaysia continues to consistently reject Philippine calls to resolve the matter of Sabah’s jurisdiction to the International Court of Justice. Sabah sees the claim made by the Philippines’ Moro leader Nur Misuari to take Sabah to International Court of Justice (ICJ) as a non-issue and thus dismissed the claim. 2. Spratly Islands

The Philippines, along with Vietnam, People’s Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), Malaysia and Brunei, is a claimant country in the disputed Spratly Islands group. Currently the Philippines is occupying nine features (seven islands, three reefs). The Spratly Islands dispute is a territorial dispute over the ownership of the Spratly Islands, a group of islands located in the South China Sea. States staking claims to various islands are: Brunei, China (People’s Republic of China), Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan (Republic of China), and Vietnam. All except Brunei occupy some of the islands.

As a comparison, Vietnam occupies six islands, seventeen reefs and three banks. The Republic of China (Taiwan) has one island and one reef. Malaysia has one artificial island and five reefs. The People’s Republic of China has eight reefs. Also, the Philippines has some features that are “virtually occupied “. These are features that lie in very close proximity to Philippine-occupied features and that can be seen within the horizon. (A 15 meter-height vision gives about 9 miles (14 km) of horizon distance): North Reef, Sandy Cay or Extension Reef, Loaita Nan and Loaita Cay.

Furthermore, the features that lie to the east of the 116°E meridian, though not occupied, are largely controlled by the Philippines. This is the region that is near Palawan with the farthest feature being just 100 miles (161 km) away. Though the Philippines has enough muscle to occupy these features without receiving much protest from other claimant nations, it has decided to just concentrate its forces on Palawan. Philippine military officials often insist that these features are very near Palawan, labeling it as an “obvious” territory of the Philippines.

Instead of building forces on the features, airfields and naval bases were built on Palawan’s west coast. There are many Filipino fishermen in this area. The Camago-Malampaya gas field is also located here. WHERE IS SPRATLY ISLANDS? The Spratly Islands are a group of more than 750 reefs, islets, atolls, cays and islands in the South China Sea. The archipelago lies off the coasts of the Philippines and Malaysia (Sabah), about one third of the way from there to southern Vietnam. They contain less than four square kilometers of land area spread over more than 425,000 square kilometers of sea.

The Spratlys are one of three archipelagos of the South China Sea which comprise more than 30,000 islands and reefs and which complicate governance and economics in that region of Southeast Asia. Such small and remote islands have little economic value in themselves, but are important in establishing international boundaries. There are no native islanders but there are, at least for now, rich fishing grounds; and initial surveys indicate the islands may contain significant reserves of oil and natural gas.