Servaa, Patricia Mae V.

CEIT-05-101A
Spratly Islands, group of reefs in the South China Sea, located midway
between Vietnam and the Philippines and claimed by several countries. Of the 12
main islets, the largest is the 90-acre (36-hectare) Itu Aba. Another, called Spratly
Island or Storm Island, measures 900 feet by 1,500 feet (275 m by 450 m). Turtles
and seabirds are the only permanent inhabitants.
Before 1970 the main significance attached to the islands was their strategic
location. France held them between 1933 and 1939. During World War II Japan
occupied the archipelago and developed it as a submarine base. After the war
China established a garrison on Itu Aba, which the Chinese Nationalists maintained
after their exile to Taiwan. When Japan renounced its claim to the islands in 1951,
Taiwan, mainland China, and Vietnam all declared themselves the rightful owners,
and the Philippines added a claim based on proximity in 1955.
Supposedly included in Spanish territory by the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, the
islands were specifically excluded from Philippine territory by the 1898 Treaty of
Paris. Japan renounced its claims in the peace treaty of 1951. The US maintains an
Air Force observation station there since 1957, but has made no claims. The
Peoples Republic of China has occupied the Paracel Islands since 1971. In addition
there have been a number of private individuals who have asserted territorial rights
(sometimes in conflict with each other) under the names of the Kingdom of
Humanity, the Republic of Morac-Songhrati-Meads, the Principality of Freedomland,
the Free Territiory of Freedomland, and the Republic of Koneuwe.
In the 1970s South Vietnam occupied three of the Spratly Islands (including
Spratly Island itself) to forestall a Chinese occupation. Taiwanese troops remained
on Itu Aba. The Philippines then moved forces onto seven of the remaining islets and
built an airstrip (1976) on Pagasa Island. By the late 20th century, Vietnam, China,
Taiwan, Malaysia (with its occupation of Turumbu Layang-Layang reef June 1983),

and the Philippines all had conflicting claims to the Spratlys, supported (except in the
case of China) by garrisons on various islands.
Sabah, which was known as North Borneo before it joined the Malaysian
Federation in 1963, was part of the Sultanate of Brunei in the 16th century while the
north-eastern coast of the state became part of the Sultanate of Sulu which was
centered in the southern islands of the Philippines. In the mid 18th century,
Europeans began making an appearance and the British managed to open a trading
post on Pulau Balambangan off the northern tip of Sabah. This post however failed
to take off.
In 1865, the American Consul for Brunei, Claude Lee Moses obtained a
lease over North Borneo. The lease ownership was passed to an American company
which tried to set up a post in what is today Kimanis. That also turned out to be a
failure and was abandoned. The lease was then sold to Baron von Overbeck, the
Austrian Consul in Hong Kong which he then transferred to Alfred Dent who in 1882
formed the British North Borneo Company to develop the colony. The capital was
first established in Kudat, then transfered to Sandakan. North Borneo became a
protectorate of Great Britain in 1888 but administration and control over the colony
remained in the hands of the Company ruled until 1942 when the Japanese invaded.
There were of course resistance to the company's rule, including by Mat Salleh in
the late 1890s and the Muruts in the early 1900s.
On September 16, 1963, North Borneo together with Malaya, Sarawak and
Singapore formed the Federation of Malaysia and from then on it became known as
Sabah.

In 1878, the Sulu sultan entered into a deed of pajak with Austrian Gustavus
Baron de Overbeck and Englishman Alfred Dent, who were representatives of a
British company. The deed was written in Arabic. In 1946, Professor Harold Conklin
translated the term pajak as lease. The 1878 deed provided for an annual rental.
This treaty constitutes the main basis of the territorial dispute between the

Philippines and Malaysia over Sabah. The Philippines claims that the term pajak
means lease, while Malaysia claims that it means cession.

The Philippine claim to Sabah was formally filed in 1961 at The United
Nations during the administration of President Diosdado Macapagal (1961-1965)
based on historical and legal claims. President Ferdinand Marcos assumed
presidency in 1965. His alleged Jabiddah plan, supposedly proposing the invasion of
Sabah, was publicly exposed, bringing the relations of Malaysia and the Philippines
into a state of mistrust.

The first foreign scholar to have extensively analyzed the Philippine claim to
Sabah was Michael Leifer, author of the monograph The Philippine Claim to Sabah.
It was a major departure from the documents published by the Philippines
government because it was the first to put the Sabah issue in its proper historical
contest. The paper provides a good background of the Philippine claim to Sabah,
although it relies heavily on a two-volume set of documents published by the
Philippine government. Leifer also utilizes newspaper articles and books to place the
Sabah issue in the context of Macapagals presidency.

The author asserts Macapagal envisioned this as a diplomatic gain rather

than a political gain. Macapagal pictured Manila as the center of Southeast Asia, a
Mecca where the other Asian countries to flock to on pilgrimage. He saw this new
role as a means to become accepted by the mainstream Asian countries by its stand
with Indonesia against United Kingdom backed Malaysia. He hoped to gain a new
respect for the voice of the Philippines, who up until this time had been mostly
overlooked, shunned even because of its support of American positions. They saw
their position as both the protagonist and mediator. Indonesia was perfectly willing to
let Philippines take that role.

Leifer maintains that the Macapagal approach to the issue more was
unbalanced. Macapagals plan to use the Philippines to block Malaysia and establish
respect among Southeast Asia was flawed. The flaw was in his inability to see the
contradictions of his policy. Maphilindo, was meant as an alternative to Malaysia and
should have been an alliance among the states, bonded over their fear of the
Chinese and their desire to expand.

In 1969, the year after Leifers book was published, under the auspices of the
National Historical Commission, the Philippines organized a conference on Sabah.
The proceedings were published in a book titled Symposium on Sabah. One of the
important chapters within the book is that of Prof. Rolando N. Quintos, who
suggests alternatives for the solution of the Sabah dispute in his chapter, The
Sabah Question: Prospects and Alternatives." Quintos offers some provocative ideas
and argues that the issue of Sabah should be seen in its two aspects: First, the legal
issue in regard to the proprietary rights of the heirs of the Sultanate; and second, the
question of political jurisdiction over Sabah. Quintos proposed a compromise deal,
arguing further that "the Philippines shall accept the justice of the Malaysian appeal
to self-determination and accept as final the conclusion of the U.N. Secretary
General the United Nation of September 1963, provided that the Malaysians are
willing to submit the issue to the World Court or to a mutually acceptable mediating
body.

The works of a Malaysian, Mohammed bin Dato Othman Ariff, The

Philippine Claim to Sabah: Its Historical, Legal and Political Implications, extensively
discusses the legal issues surrounding the claim. The main thesis of this book is to
discredit the legal basis of the Philippine claim to Sabah. The author emphasizes the
legal foundation of the United Kingdoms claim to Sabah based on possession and
consolidation through peaceful and continuous display of State activities.

Furthermore, Ariff illuminates the basis for the integration of Sabah to

Malaysia through the principle of self-determination.[7] On September 16, 1963 after
a four-month referendum on Sabah and Sarawak, the Cobbold Commision report
was presented to the British government joining Malaya, Singapore, Brunei, Sarawak
and Sabah (North Borneo) to form Malaysia; this after just a month of Sabahs
gaining its independence. United Borneo Front chairman Jeffrey Kitingan disputes
the referendum in which Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and others claim that
Sabahans desire to be part of Malaysia. There has never been a referendum on
Sabah as stated by some academics. In fact, the so-called referendum in 1962-63
was actually only a sampling survey of less than four percent of the Sabah
population, he said.

Finally, Ariff argues that the peaceful settlement of the dispute would require
the Philippines to drop the claim and concentrate all of its efforts in working closely
and cooperating with Malaysia in the context of Association of Southeast Asian
Nation ASEAN. For the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu, given their established proprietary
rights in 1931 through the North Borneo Court, this kind of suggestion is
unacceptable.

Under the agreement known as The Madrid Protocol of 1885 Spain is

limited in its influence in the region including relinquishing all rights to Borneo. This
agreement between Spain, Germany and Great Britain requires Spain to renounce
all claims of sovereignty over the territories of Borneo that had belonged to the
Sultan of Sulu. It also renounced sovereignty that were made of up of the islands of
Balambangan, Banguey, and Malawali along with everything within three maritime
leagues from the coast and the territories that formed the British North Borneo
Company.

One of the scholars in political science who has done considerable work on
the Sabah issue was Lela Garner Noble, author of the book Philippine Policy
Towards Sabah: Claim to Independence. The author argues that the Philippine
foreign policy on the Sabah issue during the time period from Macapagal through
Marcos was evidence of Philippines desire to be seen as independent from outside
forces, most specifically the United States. They wanted to improve what many
Filipinos felt was an embarrassing image as a puppet of the United States. The
claim to Sabah demonstrates an independent policy because the policy was nonAmerican in conception or direction.

Like most scholars who examined the Sabah issue, Noble, Sussman, and
Leifer view the issue as a political question, and none of them consider the issue in a
historical way. Although Leifer did provide considerable background material about
the Sabah issue in his research, he still saw it as largely a contemporary political
angle. The authors mentioned above do not discuss the historical background and
instead concentrate on contemporary political issue only.

As one may recall, both Ariff and Jayakumar disagree with the Philippine
case. Regarding the transfer of sovereignty from the British North Borneo Company
to the British Crown of Sabah in the 1878 Deed of Lease, the Philippine government
takes the position that it was illegal and "an act of naked political aggrandizement."
Hence, the transfer of sovereignty from the British Crown to the Federation of
Malaysia of Sabah was unwarranted.

Paridah Abd. Samad and Darussalam Abu Bakar in "Malaysia-Philippine

Relations: The Issue of Sabah, published in 1992, emphasized the bilateral relations
between the two countries. The paper presented sub-themes such as (a) the political
and security repercussions of the Sabah dispute with regard to the Moro
secessionism in the south, (b) the overlapping of territorial boundaries, (c) Malaysian

incursion into Philippine waters, and (d) the issue of Filipino refugees and illegal
immigrants in Sabah from the Macapagal to the Aquino administrations.

The Philippines has nothing to lose by preserving the status quo in Sabah.
Their inactivity comes at a price of missed opportunities. However, Malaysia stands
to benefit from the treasures of Sabah and its waters. Though the price of the status
quo is negligible, this non-resolution of a claim by the Philippines would be a
stumbling block to the intra-ASEAN cooperation.

Malaysia is fully supported by Great Britain and the Commonwealth of Nations

in rejecting the claim, while the Philippines have literally no international support.
Even the United States, Philippines biggest ally had assumed a neutral position.
Though the other ASEAN countries appeared to distance themselves from the issue
as not to take sides between two of their members, they privately acknowledged
Malaysias rights to the territory.

Malaysia asserts that it has honored its financial obligations and is prepared
to negotiate directly with the Sulu heirs without Philippine intrusion. They assert this
matter is between them and the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu. In fact the descendants
of the Sultan receives M$5,000 ($2,008 US) every year as part of the cession of the
area leased to the British Company in the 19th century.