Tag: Sultan of Sulu

Fleeing residents of Tanjung Labian flee their village in the area where Filipino gunmen are locked in a stand off with Malaysian security forces in Sabah state on March 10-2013. AFP-News Mohd Rasfan. From Yahoo.
In the press conference of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima in Malacañang yesterday on the arrest of 35 armed men from Sabah, she was asked why the government is quick on acting against the people associated with the Lahad Datu standoff and is not acting on reports on maltreatment by Malaysians of Filipinos in Sabah.

De Lima justified the glaring difference in their reactions to the fact the armed men believed to be members of the Royal Security Force of the Sultan of Sulu were intercepted by the Philippine Navy in the high seas of Tawi-Tawi with firearms and deadly weapons which is a violation of the Comelec gun ban.
She skipped the second part of the question and the reporter did not follow it up.

Reliable information we got from Malacañang explains why De Lima, formerly chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, kept quiet on the issue of gross human rights violations by Malaysia against Filipinos in Sabah.

Malaysia treats the Philippines like dirt and Malacañang takes it with hardly a whimper.

News reports relate the harrowing experience of Filipinos under the hands of Malaysian security forces who are conducting a sweep of the Sabah to capture the forces of Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram, younger brother of Jamalul Kiram III and one of the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu, who was given Sabah by the Sultan of Brunei in 1878 as a reward for helping suppress a revolt.

Sabah became part of Malaysia as a result of questionable decisions by a British company and the United Kingdom.

A report by Inquirer’s Julie Alipala and Karlos Manlupig quoted 32-year old Amira Taradji, one of those who fled Sabah last week, as saying, “We’re treated like animals.”

“It is a sad commnetary on the Philippines if our own nationals should run to the UN because their government cannot protect their rights. This is not the spectacle our country wants to portray to the international community.

“It is now urgent to cease to be “confused” and move and act decisively. Time to end the Kabuki play on Sabah.”

THE President has gone on TV appealing and at the same time chastising the Sultan of Sulu over the standoff in Lahad Datu in Sabah.

The next few days will tell the wisdom of doing it in public. His statements and actions give the unintended consequence of leaning on our own nationals over a foreign power. We may be playing into Malaysia’s hands who has been adopting a studied but cavalier attitude over the standoff. They are exercising acts of “effectivités” over Sabah during this standoff by their actions and even by their silence over our naive pronouncements.

“Effectivités” in a territorial dispute between countries gives weight to actual and continued exercise of authority over a territory. This is the basis of the International Court of Justice ’s 2002 decision on the Ligatan Sipadan case where the court awarded the area to Malaysia over Indonesia. Also the same principle in the case between Chile and Peru and between Nicaragua and Guatemala.