In demanding that the followers of the Sultan of Sulu surrender immediately to Malaysian authorities because the Sabah standoff was reaching a point of no return, President Aquino showed a complete misjudgment of the character and resolve of Moros in fighting for what they believe is right.
Aquino is obviously not a good student of history as he showed almost complete ignorance of both the Sabah claim and the “fight till death” attitude courageously shown by Moros during the bloody American pacification campaign in Mindanao during the early years of the American occupation of the Philippines. In fact, it has been said that the powerful Colt .45 was invented precisely to stop the Moro “amoks” who defied American bullets with their bladed weapons.
It was also ill advised and unfair for Aquino to call the Sultan followers’ stand as “a foolhardy act,” considering that his very own father, the late Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. took the risk of assassination to resume his fight for freedom in his native land in an act that could have been considered “foolhardy” but turned out to be a most heroic act that eventually led to the downfall of a dictator.
Now it would seem that the Sabah standoff might have indeed reached a point of no return as more Filipinos in that land are joining the fight for what they consider their legitimate right to live in what they consider their homeland.
According to news reports, Filipinos enraged by a Malaysian raid on a religious leader’s house in Sabah retaliated Saturday night, attacking an army convoy and overrunning a district police headquarters. The Malaysian police later confirmed that six Malaysian security officers and six Filipino gunmen were killed. The report also said four ranking Sabah officials were held captive by the Filipinos in Semporna, where the violence has spread from the coastal town of Lahad Datu, where an earlier siege by Malaysian forces resulted in the death of 12 Filipinos and two Malaysian policemen.
The Semporan clash seemed to confirm fears expressed by an official of the Moro National Liberation Front that the standoff could lead to a civil war in Sabah. “I am afraid there will be a civil war in Sabah because thousands of Bangsamoro are residing in Sabah,” Gapul Hajirul, political chief of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) said.
Habib Mujahab Hashim, chairman of the MNLF’S Islamic Command Council, meanwhile, said reinforcements from Mindanao also breached the Malaysian security cordon in Sandakan, another part of Sabah, and ambushed two truckloads of men belonging to the Malaysian Territorial Army Regiment, claiming that the ambushers wiped the convoy out. Hashim denies, however, that the MNLF has joined the Sulu rebels.
What will Aquino do now that the Sabah standoff is fast becoming a thorn in the relations with Malaysia that he has nursed for so long? Will he continue to threaten the heirs and followers of the Sultan of Sulu with charges if they did not surrender to the Malaysian authorities? Will he continue to ignore the legitimate claims of the Sultan of Sulu over Sabah? Will he continue to appease the Malaysians and pressure the Sultan’s heirs to stand down?
Based on the initial reaction of Malacanang officials, it seems apparent that Aquino is not ready to risk losing the support of the Malaysian government in his effort to forge a peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front by April. He has repeatedly reported that the Philippine government and MILF panels are ready to reach agreement by April, and he probably feels that angering Malaysia, which is brokering the peace talks, could spoil the negotiations.
It is not far-fetched to speculate that despite claims by Malacanang to the contrary, Aquino purposely ignored the letter sent to him in 2010 by Agbimuddin Kiram, crown prince of the sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo, expressing his clan’s stand on the Philippine claim to Sabah and the peace process in Muslim Mindanao, because it stood in the way of his peace efforts with the MILF, which he vowed would be the legacy of his administration.
Aquino is so obsessed in forging a peace pact with the MILF that when he heard of the Sabah standoff, that he exposed his lack of statesmanship. Instead of assuring the Sultan that he would review the Sabah claim but if the Sultan could please tell his men to stand down, he started on the wrong foot by immediately dismissing the Sultan followers’ action as a “foolhardy act” and threatening to arrest and file charges against them when they come back to the Philippines. By so doing, he sent clear signals to the Malaysians that it was okay to launch an assault on the Filipinos. Other governments would move mountains to save their citizens.
And now, in an obvious attempt to discredit the Sultan and his heirs, Aquino is insinuating that the Sabah incident is a conspiracy between the Sultan and certain groups close to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Clearly, the Aquino administration mishandled the situation just as badly as it handled the hostage crisis involving a disgruntled policeman who held hostage a bus full of Hongkong tourists a few days into his presidency in July 2010. Many Hongkong tourists died in the aftermath of the police assault.
Some lawmakers and newspaper columnists are now claiming that had Aquino not ignored the pleas of the Sultan for a meeting to discuss the Sabah claim and the ongoing peace negotiations, the standoff would not have happened in the first place. It is so foolhardy to believe that such an important letter would have been lost in what Palace spokespersons described as “bureaucratic maze.” Was it an inadvertent admission of his government’s inefficiency or a blatant lie?
In his letter to Aquino, Agbimuddin expressed his clans’ exasperation at being ignored through five decades of the discussions of the Sabah claim. Agbimuddin said the heirs of the sultanate suspected that vested interests in the previous administrations were behind the claim’s being denied the attention it deserved.
The letter ended with the clan’s expression of hope of seeing “a change in the treatment of the Sabah issue” under Aquino’s administration.
The Kirams’ exasperation is now almost certain to continue as it would appear that Aquino would rather keep the status quo to appease the Malaysians than help his fellow Filipinos fight for what is legally theirs.
Except for President Diosdado Macapagal, five succeeding presidents have chosen to ignore appeals by the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu to pursue the Philippine claim to Sabah. Why should Aquino be any different?
Just as the martyred Ninoy Aquino considered his country worth dying for, the heirs and followers of the Sultan of Sulu think their right to live in their own land is worth dying for. The younger Aquino should review the Sabah claim and not let their deaths be in vain.
(valabelgas@aol.com)