The Philippine Claim to Sabah: Is It Time for a War Dance? (Part 1)

Tuesday, 31 May 2011 01:57
Written by Marvin Bionat
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Marvin Bionat

Tags: Bottom Line

At Stake

The second largest state in Malaysia, Sabah is 72,500 square kilometers (almost a quarter of the total land area of the Philippines) of natural beauty and resources, with 1,440 kilometers of coastline. A fast-growing tourist destination, it is home to the Kinabalu National Park, a designated World Heritage Site. Sabah contributes an estimated 30 billion dollars to the Malaysian economy.

The Proprietary Claim of the Sultanate of Sulu

The Sultan of Sulu acquired Sabah in 1658 as a gift from the Sultanate of Brunei after Sulu warriors helped end a civil war in Brunei.

In 1878, the Sultan of Sulu signed a treaty with the representatives of the British North Borneo Company, giving them “rights and powers” over Sabah. In return, the company promised to pay 5,000 Malaysian dollars annually.

Within the same year, Singapore papers reported that the Sultanate had ceded Sabah to the British company. The Sultan wrote successive letters to the Spanish governor-general vehemently denying the reports.

When the Sultan died without direct descendants in 1936, the annual payments stopped. His rightful heirs formed the Kiram Corporation to represent his estate, and in 1939, the Malaysian High Court upheld the Sultanate’s entitlement to the yearly payments promised in the 1878 treaty (increased to 5,300 Malaysian dollars in 1903).

Seven years after the court case, the British government assumed the rights and powers of the British North Borneo Company over Sabah. They in turn assumed the same rights and powers stipulated in the 1878 treaty, which the Sultan claimed was a lease agreement. The Sultanate continued to receive the annual payment.

The Philippine Legal Claim

In 1962, the heirs of the Sultan decided to transfer the Sultanate’s proprietary claim to the Philippine government. It was stipulated that “should the Republic fail to recover North Borneo after exhausting all peaceful means, then the transfer document shall ipso facto become null and void and the Sultan of Sulu shall be free to assert his sovereignty by other means.” Within the same year, Philippine President Macapagal made the government claim official.

Malaysia acknowledged the Philippine claim by signing the Manila Accord on August 5, 1963. The treaty spelled out that the inclusion of Sabah in the Federation of Malaysia is subject to the final outcome of the Philippine claim; that the Philippines has the right to continue to pursue the claim in accordance with international law and the principle of pacific settlement of disputes; that the inclusion of Sabah in the Federation would not prejudice the claim; and that both sides agree to bring the problem to a just and expeditious resolution through negotiation, conciliation, arbitration, or judicial settlement.

The primary basis of the Philippine claim is the assertion that Malaysia received from Britain only the non-sovereign rights acquired in Sabah by the British from the British North Borneo Company, to whom the territory had been leased by the Sultan of Sulu. Even British Foreign Minister Lord Earl Granville said in 1882 that “the Crown in this present case assumes no dominion or sovereignty over the territories occupied by the (British North Borneo Company), nor does it purport to grant to the Company any powers of Government thereover; it merely recognizes the grants of territory and the powers of government made and delegated by the Sultans in whom the sovereignty remains vested.”

Grand Deception

It was not until 1946 that a copy of the Arabic original of the 1878 treaty was obtained by the U.S. State Department from the British. The word used to transfer the territory was “padjak,” which means “lease.” This was significantly different from the treaty translation used in the 1939 court case, in which the term used was “grant” (thus justifying the use of “cession payments” in the 1939 decision). Arabic scholars agreed with the new translation. Likewise, Spanish documents used the word “arrendamiento” or rent.

In his letter to the Spanish governor in 1878, the Sultan asserted that the British North Borneo Company representatives had a new contract written after the original treaty was signed. One other significant alteration in the British version was the provision that “the rights and privileges conferred by this grant shall never be transferred to any other nation or company of foreign nationality without the sanction of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government first being obtained.” In the Arabic version, it said, “the rights and powers hereby leased shall not be transferred to another nation, or a company of another nationality, without the consent of Their Majesties’ Government” (meaning the Sultanate’s government).

(To be continued)

How Sabah fell into the hands of Sulu Sultanate

In order to establish the historical truth on today’s Sabah issues, it is necessary to write a series of articles based from documents of historical events of North Borneo or Sabah. This will give out clearly and intelligently informations to the reading public, and especially to the young generations of the Bangsa Sug people of Sulu archipelago since it is their ancestral domain.

How North Borneo now called Sabah falls into the hands of Sulu Sultanate came about during the reigning period of Sultan Muhammad Ali, the 12th reigning Sultan of Brunei Sultanate. History accounts that Sultan Bolkiah extended Brunei territories circa 1500 A.D. by conquest westward to Sarawak and eastward to Tirun territories in the northern coast of Borneo island. This will more or less reveal the extend of the Brunei Sultanate territories.

It was in the 1662 A.D. that an important event took place in Brunei. The son of Sultan Muhammad Ali was killed by the son of Bendahara (Prime Minister) Abdul Mubin. When the Bendahara explained to the Sultan trying to justify the action of his son, he realized that justice was not in his favor that caused him and his followers killed the Sultan. Since Benhadara Abdul Mubin was a nephew of the murdered Sultan, he was crowned the new Sultan of Brunei. Upon his enthronement, Sultan Abdul Mubin chose his cousin named Pangiran Bongsu as his Bendahara (Prime Minister).

After a few years, intrigues entered into their relationship, and discontented persons started to look up to Pangiran Bongsu to lead a revolt. Because of what has appeared as a growing discontent against Sultan Abdul Mubin, Pangiran Bongsu was able to persuade Sultan Abdul Mubin to transfer his residence to Pulao Chermin, an island off Brunei, and to have it fortified. Due to the popular request of the people, Pangiran Bongsu raised the revolt in Brunei town, and soon his people enthroned him as Sultan with the regal title of Sultan Muaddin (Muhjiddin). Thus, it was how Brunei to have two Sultans reigning at the same time. The civil war ensued to have lasted for more than 10 years that caused the trade activities came to a standstill and famine visited the land. The island of Pulao Chermin which guarded the entrance to the Bay prevented supplies from getting into the town of Brunei. The island of Pulao Chermin too was denied resources from the mainland. To break this impasse, Sultan Muaddin sent a message to Sulu Sultan Salahuddin, the 10th Sultan of Sulu Sultanate and who was his cousin, asking him for aid.

The first thing the Sulu Sultan did was to go to the island of Pulao Chermin and seeked an audience with Sultan Abdul Mubin. During their meeting Sultan Salahuddin reminded Sultan Abdul Mubin that it was not proper for Muslims to fight each other. The Sulu Sultan was then allowed to go over to Brunei mainland, and to persuade the other Sultan to seek the ways of peace.

During the meeting of Sulu Sultan and Sultan Muaddin both have agreed to destroy the enemies of the Brunei Sultanate. Sultan Muaddin promised further that if the island of Pulao Chermin shall be conquered with the assistance of Sulu Sultan and his warriors, the North Borneo territory should belong to Sulu Sultan. The Sultanate of Sulu accepted this offer with delight.

Since the soldiers of the Sultan of Sulu were still fresh and strong, they carried out the war with the support of the warriors of Sultan Muaddin that totally destroyed their enemies and won the war. Sultan Muaddin then returned to Brunei mainland carrying all the captives from the island, and the Sulu Sultan returned to Sulu carrying his plunder, including the royal guns of the island Sultan. The promised of Sultan Muaddin was fulfilled by giving the piece of deerskin showing the map of North Borneo territory with the Sultan’s seal. This was done on a simple and solemn ceremony which symbolized and attesting to the fact that same territory was ceded to the Sultanate of Sulu. This document was honored since ancient time and never questioned up to the present by any authority.

Why fear a referendum in Sabah?

By Joe Fernandez | January 1, 2011

The United PasokMomogun KadazanDusunMurut Organisation (Upko), a member of Barisan Nasional (BN), ostensibly fears that Filipinos in Sabah, ever growing in their numbers, will soon demand a referendum on the state’s participation in the Federation of Malaysia.

The fear apparently stems from the longstanding Philippine claim to Sabah.

These Filipinos, illegal immigrants who obtained MyKads through the backdoor, have either overtaken local numbers or are on the verge of doing so, according to Upko deputy president Wilfred Mojilip Bumburing.

Bumburing wants the National Registration Department (NRD) in Putrajaya and the federal government to undo, as promised, their MyKad mischief in Sabah before the next general election.

He must be living in a dream world of his own making. There must be something in the water in Tuaran, Bumburing’s parliamentary seat, which gives one a permanent high.
He has himself said that these Filipinos in Sabah are already on the electoral rolls as Malays and are the “real BN fixed deposit” that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has been bragging about.

Hence, his call to confiscate the MyKads from them is a sort of contradiction in terms.

In any case, Bumburing and his party should not fear any referendum on Malaysia conducted in Sabah. It will be a historical opportunity to bring closure on many issues bedevilling relations across the South China Sea. Let the weapon (MyKad) kill its wielder (Putrajaya), to paraphrase a Malay saying.

Sabah claim


Any referendum will be undertaken by the United Nations based on Security Council Resolutions. The General Assembly may also debate on it.

A UN-held referendum will disallow the Filipinos from participating in it since they are not legitimate citizens of Sabah. If anything, the run-up to the UN referendum will expose the complicity of the NRD in Putrajaya and the federal government in scams to effectively disenfranchise the people of Sabah. This would merit some sort of UN action against Malaysia under the various international conventions against racism, genocide, xenophobia, ethnic-cleansing,
marginalisation and the like.

A UN referendum must not be completely about the Sabah claim but must also take into account the fact that the Federation of Malaysia may have ceased to exist in 1965 with the departure of Singapore. This underlines the fact that the federal government has been in non-compliance on the 1963 Malaysia Agreement.

The federation, discounting Singapore, was made of three territories – Sabah, Sarawak, and Malaya— based on equality and partnership. This is no longer so because Singapore’s exit saw the
resurrection of the Malaya Federation of 1957 and the admission of Sabah and Sarawak as its 12th and 13th states. In short, the Borneo states became independent of Malaysia at the time of Singapore’s exit but were retained illegally in the Malaysia Federation, now masquerading as Malaysia. The definition of “federation” in the Federal Constitution is the 1957 definition and not that of 1963.

The Sabah claim complicates the referendum process.

Not many know that the claim excludes the interior of the state. The claimed area covers eastern Sabah, which was part of the Sulu sultanate, now part of the Philippines. It also covers the northern
third of the state, which a victorious sultan in Brunei handed over to Sulu in return for the latter’s help in settling a palace dispute in the former’s favour. Sulu claims that eastern and northern Sabah were leased to the British North Borneo Company and sovereignty has since been transferred to the Philippine republic.

Sabahans will not accept a two-part referendum, that is, the interior to decide whether it wants to be independent or part of Malaysia, and the Sabah claim areas to decide between Malaysia, the Philippines and independence.

Keeping Sabah united would mean allowing the people of the state to decide whether they want independence or to be in either Malaysia or the Philippines.

Best option

Independence would of course be the best option for Sabah – as well as Sarawak. Both states can then finally enter into the federation envisaged with Brunei before Malaysia. The Federation of Malaysia was the result of Sabah’s rejection of the North Borneo Federation on the grounds that Sarawak was too poor and lacked economic potential.

The next best option for Sabah would be to become an autonomous part of the Philippines, which has the kind of human capital that can help the state enter the 21st century. The Philippine common market is also nearer to Sabah and bigger than Malaysia’s. The republic, furthermore, is also a rapidly developing country with enormous potential.

There is much in common between the native majority in Sabah and the majority of the people in the Philippines.


The Malaysia Agreement proviso that Sabah would have no official religion would be honoured in a Sabah that is part of the Philippines.

In terms of security, Manila can be expected to return the illegal immigrants in Sabah back to the southern part of the Philippines if their labour is not needed. Those who stay back in Sabah will not be entitled to local documents. If they have such documents, they will have to surrender them to the local authorities.

Sabah as part of the Philippines may be an unthinkable idea now, but it is not at all impossible.

There is too much hype about Sabah being part of Malaysia. It is all propaganda.

It is unthinkable that a native Christian from Sabah would ever become prime minister of Malaysia. But a Sabahan can become president of the Philippines if the state is part of that republic.

Malaysia has clearly failed in Sabah and Sarawak after 47 years. Both states have been reduced to abject poverty, poorer than any in the country. It is high time to put the past behind and move forward.

Again, independence would be the best option for Sabah, as for Sarawak. We only have to look at Singapore and Brunei. The former left Malaysia after two years and the latter stayed out at the 11th hour.

Look where they are now. Singapore’s economy, at US$210 billion GDP, will be bigger than Malaysia’s US$205 billion GDP this year.

Sabah and Sarawak would be able to do what Singapore and Brunei have been able to do on their own outside Malaysia.

If a choice must be made between Malaysia and the Philippines for practical reasons, the former is certainly no option for Sabah, with its poor record in the two Borneo states despite the passage of nearly half a century.

There is definitely a case here for the UN Security Council to step in.