The relationship between Malaysia and the Philippines
The visit of Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad here last week was a significant milestone in the history of Philippine-Malaysia relations. Mahathir, the oldest head of government in the world today is in his nineties and is a very close friend and golf partner of our own FVR, who is reportedly quite sick nowadays. Mahathir was the longest-serving prime minister of the federal and parliamentary government of Malaysia. He followed, among others the great Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tunku Abdul Razak, and Hussien Onn. He was succeeded by Mohammad Badawi, the head of government when I was assigned as diplomat in our embassy in Kuala Lumpur in 2005. Then Najib Razak, son of Tunku Abdul Razak took over. Najib was involved in various cases and Mahathir led the opposition, ultimately ousting his former protégé. Mahathir is back but will soon give way to Anwar Ibrahim.
Among all the ASEAN member-nations, the closest friend of the Philippines is Indonesia, not Malaysia. The seeds that grew into what ASEAN is today started in the ‘50s and ‘60s as the Maphilindo (Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia) triumvirate. The close ties between Malaysia and the Philippines were strained, in fact, broken for a while, by the Sabah issue. President Marcos, in the ‘70s, secretly trained a special force intended to occupy and reclaim Sabah. But the secret force was exposed by the late senator Ninoy Aquino, angering Malaysia which broke diplomatic relations with us. Marcos later restored the said relations in coordination with Mahathir.
The Sabah issue had been neglected by the Aquinos, both mother and son. In fact, rumors spread that PNoy gave up Sabah in exchange for some past favors because allegedly, the Sultan of Johore helped Ninoy come back to the Philippines, or something to that effect. But these are unconfirmed rumors. The fact today is that many Malaysian leaders are suspicions of Philippine initiatives related to Sabah. We need to stress that more than 700,000 Filipinos, mostly undocumented, work and live there. Thousands of undocumented Filipinos are in detention for violating Malaysian immigration and other laws.
Malaysia is a federal country of 13 states; Selangor, Perak, Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, Terrengganu, Penang, Pahang, Malacca, Johore, Negeri Sembilan, Sabah, and Sarawak. There are two main parts of Malaysia; the peninsula that is connected by land to Thailand, and the part of Malaysia in the island of Borneo, composed of Sabah and Sarawak. The two states share the island of Borneo with Indonesia and Brunei. Peninsular Malaysia includes the eleven other states named above. Sabah and Sarawak are very close to Sulu and Palawan and our people cross the borders freely every day.
Sabah belongs to the Sultan of Sulu by proprietary rights. It belongs to Malaysia by political and sovereign territorial rights. Until now, Malaysia pays an annual rent to the sultanate of Sulu. But just because a Filipino owns a land in Malaysia doesn’t necessarily follow that such a land is Philippine territory. Manny Pacquiao owns land in Hollywood, California. It doesn’t mean that Hollywood is Philippine territory. My brothers own lands in Washington. It doesn’t mean that Washington is a Philippine territory. The sultanate of Sulu owns that land by cession of his cousin, the former sultan of Brunei, because Sabah in the sixteenth century was a part of the domain of the sultan of Brunei, and Brunei used to be part of Malaysia.
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