By : NORMAN BORDADORA
CEBU CITY: Re-electionist
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV on Wednesday called on the Aquino administration to
make known its policy on the country’s claim to Sabah and on the standoff
between Malaysian security forces and a group of armed followers of the sultan
of Sulu in the eastern Malaysian territory.
The stand-off in Tanduao
village in Sabah’s Lahad Datu town has entered a second week, with Malaysian
authorities saying on Wednesday that the situation is under control and that
the Filipinos from Sulu will be deported soon.
Emissaries from the Aquino
administration are working quietly to convince Sultan Jamalul Kiram to recall
his followers from Sabah.
According to a highly placed
source of the Inquirer in the Cabinet, Jamalul and his other brother, Bantilan
Esmail Kiram II, must decide by Friday whether to call their followers home.
On Wednesday, Esmail was
going to see Jamalul, who is undergoing dialysis in a Manila hospital, to talk
to him and make a decision, the source said.
It is believed that the
Malaysian government has given the sultan’s followers a deadline to leave or be
rounded up and deported, but agreed to an extension of the deadline “by a few
days” to allow the sultan and his family to reconsider their demand to stay in
Sabah.
President Aquino’s former
backchannel link to Beijing at the height of tensions between the Philippines
and China over a territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea (South China
Sea) last year, Trillanes (pic) told reporters here that he would brief Aquino
on the Sabah situation soon.
But the former Navy officer
said he needed to know first the administration’s exact policy on Sabah, the
former North Borneo and part of the sultanate of Sulu whose heirs are now agitating
to regain.
The 300 armed Filipinos
holed up in Tanduao are led by Agbimuddin Kiram, brother of Jamalul, who
authorized the occupation of Sabah through a “royal decree” last November.
Agbimuddin and his group
landed in Lahad Datu on Feb. 9, was discovered three days later, and now
surrounded by police, military and naval forces waiting either to escort them
out for deportation or storm their camp if they insisted on occupying what they
called their “homeland.”
Trillanes: Make known Sabah
policy
Trillanes said it was “high
time the Department of Foreign Affairs articulate[d]” the government’s policy
on Sabah. “[U]ntil then we’ll have to withhold further comment because this is
a very sensitive issue [and] it involves the lives of our countrymen in Sabah,”
he said.
The Philippines is claiming
Sabah on behalf of the heirs of the late sultan of Sulu, but the claim has been
side-lined by negotiations to bring to an end four decades of Muslim insurgency
in Mindanao, with Malaysia brokering the peace talks between the administration
of President Aquino and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest
rebel group on the island.
Peace deal
The Aquino administration
and the MILF signed a preliminary peace accord last October, riling a rival
rebel group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and the heirs of the
Sulu sultan who wanted a say on peace and development in Mindanao.
By Jamalul Kiram’s
statements to the press at the early stages of the standoff last week, the
heirs of the Sulu sultan are disgruntled at being left out of the peace deal
with the MILF and now are probably trying to scuttle it, either acting on their
own or with support from the MNLF.
Trillanes, who is running
for reelection on the administration coalition’s senatorial ticket, said he
intended to discuss the impasse with the President soon.
Another candidate on the
administration ticket, former Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., on Tuesday suggested
that the government stop Jamalul Kiram from fueling the tension in Sabah.
Instead of ordering his
followers to stand their ground in Sabah, Jamalul should allow the Malaysian
authorities to return his followers to the Philippines.
Magsaysay, a former chairman
of the Senate committee on national defense, said Jamalul was citing “complex
issues” that should not be brought into the negotiations for a peaceful
resolution of the standoff in Sabah.
Magsaysay issued a statement
urging diplomatic efforts to end the standoff and calling on Jamalul’s
followers to return to the Philippines.
“The most important is a
peaceful settlement without rocking the relationship between Malaysia and the
Philippines,” Magsaysay said.
Magsaysay issued the
statement following Malaysian Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein’s declaration
that Malaysia would never compromise its sovereignty and security.
“They should not use force,”
Magsaysay said.
“It’s very embarrassing
during these times of good diplomacy. We must remember that Malaysia is a very
friendly country to us. Let’s discuss the issue diplomatically,” he said.
Take Sabah question to UN
An independent candidate for
the Senate, former Philippine Constabulary chief Ramon Montaño, on Wednesday
said retired generals preferred that the government take the Sabah question to
the United Nations, as it did with the Philippines’ territorial dispute with
China in the West Philippine Sea.
Montaño added, however, that
the government should insist on the right of the followers of the Sulu sultan
to stay in Sabah until the question of ownership is resolved by the United
Nations.
“Until then, there should be
no use of force,” he said.
“We should support them.
[Sabah] belongs to the sultanate of Sulu. Let them stay there,” Montaño said.
Supporters of the heirs of
the Sulu sultan prepared on Wednesday to picket the Malaysian Embassy in Manila
in support of the cornered group of
Agbimuddin in Sabah.
Melchor Chavez, a spokesman
for Sultan Rodinood Jalaspi Kiram II, told reporters at a news forum in Manila
that supporters of the heirs were gathering followers for a march on the
Malaysian Embassy, during which they would declare the Malaysian ambassador
persona non grata in the Philippines.
Chavez said Jalaspi Kiram
had a pending request in the United Nations for mediation in the Sabah
ownership dispute.
Former Ambassador Roy
Señeres said at the forum that President Aquino could be accused of treason for
his admission that the Sabah claim was “dormant.”
Señeres said he supported
proposals for the termination of a lease agreement between the heirs and
Malaysia. (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
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