By Ex-Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee
KOTA KINABALU: The good news of Malaysia successfully overcoming the frivolous attempts by the so-called heirs of the defunct sultanate of Sulu have brought relief to the people of Sabah. It seems that the efforts of the Sulu claimants have backfired on them and their financial backers.
To move the success forward and to once and for all put a definite end to the Philippines/Sulu claim to Sabah, the Malaysian government must do its utmost in getting the Philippines government to set up a consulate in Sabah.
By setting up a Philippines consulate in Sabah, the Philippines would be telling its own people in the Philippines to forget about their fanciful claim to Sabah. Sabah has never been owned or ruled by Sulu or the Philippines at any time in the history of Sulu or the Philippines. The so-called grant of 22 January 1878 is itself void because of the preceding grant between Brunei and Overbeck/Dent on 29 December 1877.
There is also absolutely no necessity to put this Philippines/Sulu claim to the International Court of Justice because Malaysia has already successfully defeated the attempt of the Philippines to bring their claim to the ICJ via the Pulau Ligitan/Sipadan case in 2001. The ICJ had ruled that the Philippines had failed to show that it has “an interest of a legal nature” on the Ligitan/Sipadan case. The Philippines had attempted to intervene in the Ligitan/Sipadan case between Malaysia and Indonesia by saying that they (Philippines) owned the Ligitan/Sipadan islands by virtue of their claim on Sabah. That adventure by the Philippines was thrown out by the ICJ (in 2001).
There are ample documentary evidence to show that neither the now defunct Sulu Sultanate nor the Republic of Philippines has ever ruled any part of North Borneo (now Sabah).
The Malaysian government must show to the Philippines/Sulu people that it is also in their own interests to stop their futile behaviour of claiming Sabah. Let the good neighbourly win-win relationship between Malaysian Sabah and Philippines Bangsamoro prosper together in peace.
Let those citizens of the Philippines who are residing in Sabah have the badly needed consular services that have been denied them by their own government (of the Philippines Republic).
