No reason for Manila consulate in Lawas

It is a hare-brained scheme on the part of the Manila government to agree to the setting up of a consulate in Lawas to cater for its citizens in Sabah.

COMMENT

It appears that the Philippine government has finally come around to the idea of having a consulate to cater for its citizens in Sabah. The catch is that the consulate may not be in Sabah, after all, but just across the border in Lawas, Sarawak, which ironically doesn’t need such an arrangement.

Ostensibly, a consulate in Lawas avoids giving the appearance to the world that Manila recognises Sabah as being part of Malaysia.

In any case, Lawas is a hare-brained scheme on the part of the Manila government. It’s unlikely that Sarawak will allow hordes of illegal immigrants from Sabah to cross into the state to get their papers in order. Any Philippine consulate in Sarawak should be in Kuching, not Lawas.

There is an element of diplomatic double talk, if not semantics, here with the focus on Lawas.

Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

Besides, since Manila has an ambassador in Kuala Lumpur, it effectively scuttles its Sabah claim. The Philippines has for all practical purposes recognised Malaysia, which includes Sabah. Further, the fact that Manila is doing virtually nothing to pursue its Sabah claim is another point which underlines the utter futility of the cause, if any. The loss of Pulau Batu Putih to Singapore and the islands of Sipadan and Ligitan to Malaysia can be kept in mind.

Also, every country in Asean – of which the Philippines is a founder member – the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council, and the rest of the world have recognised Malaysia.

If we are to go along with the Philippines’ “determination” to maintain the fiction of its Sabah claim, the fact also remains that it cannot “seek the entire territory of the state”.

Sulu – now part of the Philippines – used to claim the eastern third of Sabah (evidently named after the Sabah banana plant), just below the northern one third, among its “colonial” but non-territorial possessions. The northern third used to be part of the Brunei Sultanate’s non-territorial “colonial” possessions until it, and the eastern third, was handed to Sulu in 1658 by the triumphant rival in a struggle for the throne in Bandar Seri Begawan. This was for the Sulu Sultan’s help to the winning side in Brunei.

Sabah claim

Muslim rule was not territorial in the western sense but, as “kerajaan sungei” (river governments), was confined to collecting toll along the waterways. The borders of such rule were never defined. It was the westerners, like the British in Malaya, who introduced the idea of territories and borders. They could not contemplate the idea of a ruler who did not have territory. A sultan, in Muslim and Arab history, originally democratically elected, was the spiritual head of the local ummah (faithful).

The rest of Sabah, the west coast and Dusun proper country in Pedalaman, was effectively outside the writ of both Sulu and Brunei.

During the reign of the fifith Brunei Sultan, Bolkiah (1473 to 1524), the sultanate’s thalassocracy – empire of the sea – extended over Sabah, the Sulu Archipelago and Manila in the north, and Sarawak and Banjarmasin in the south in Kalimantan.

The question that arises, hence, is why the proposed Philippine consulate should be in Lawas and not somewhere in Pedalaman and the west coast like Keningau.

Alternatively, the consulate could be in the Federal Territory of Labuan. The island was transferred by Brunei to Britain in 1846 and became a British Crown Colony. Its subsequent history is not an issue here.

Hence, it’s not known why Manila did not opt for either Keningau or Labuan as the site for the proposed consulate. The Sabah claim doesn’t enter the picture at all. In 1885, the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany signed the Madrid Protocol which recognised the sovereignty of Spain in the Sulu Archipelago in return for the relinquishment of all Spanish claims over North Borneo. In 1888, North Borneo became a protectorate of the United Kingdom and a colony after World War II.

The proposed Philippine consulate in Sabah is an idea whose time has come. Of the estimated 1.7 million foreigners in Sabah, the majority illegal immigrants, more than half are from the Philippines. Meanwhile, Malaysians in Sabah number just 1.5 million.

Manila has been dragging its foot on the idea of a consulate in Sabah, not because of its claim which has no basis in international law, but its hidden agenda in the southern Philippines. In the face of continuing Christian immigration from the north, the policy of successive administrations in Manila has been to depopulate the south of its original Muslim inhabitants. These rural Muslims have spilled over into Sabah, given the push factor of Christian influx into their lands and the pull factor of “urban” Sabah.

While many Sabahans have no beef with the orderly influx of foreign workers from the Philippines, or anywhere else, they draw a line at illegal immigration.

Blind eye

Sabahans can be persuaded to turn a blind eye to the presence of the illegal immigrants out of economic necessities.

Still, they are certainly against these illegals being provided with Malaysian personal documents. To add insult to injury, many of these illegals have been placed on the electoral rolls to increase the number of Muslim seats in Sabah and to give the winning edge to Umno in marginal and mixed seats.

The government of the Philippines, being a Roman Catholic country, cannot be party to the continuing marginalisation and disenfranchisement of the original population of Christian natives in Sabah. The consulate, although a case of too little too late, can nevertheless be expected to work on the growing problem of the stateless Filipinos in Sabah, refugees, street children, illegal immigrants and those holding dubious Malaysian documents.

Of the original 13 Muslim-majority Muslim provinces in the southern Philippines, eight already have a Christian majority. This is a fait accompli which cannot be reversed because the Muslims rather flee their country for Sabah than stay and “fight” for it.

Given this scenario, it’s time for the Manila government to call a halt to the “Christianisation” of the south to prevent the re-creation of the southern Philippines in Sabah. If left unchecked, it’s not inconceivable that the politics of Sabah in the coming decades would be dominated by dubious citizens from the Philippines.

There is a case for the natives, particularly in Sabah, to lodge an official complaint with the Vatican over the anti-Muslim policies of the Manila government which are being pursued at their expense.

Again, although the Christian influx from the north cannot be legally halted, the Muslims in the southern Philippines can take charge of their destiny by not selling their land to the newcomers and by educating themselves for the modern world instead of relying only on religious schools and fleeing to Sabah.

The Malaysian Foreign Ministry and the Sabah government should also pursue the idea of a Philippine consulate in Sabah itself, not in Sarawak. If the consulate cannot be in Kota Kinabalu, it should be set up either in Keningau or Labuan.

Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, a Sabahan, has a historical window of opportunity to bring about the Philippine consulate as a concrete reality in Sabah.

There are no guarantees that the Philippine consulate in Sabah will ever materialise even in Lawas after Anifah’s stint at Wisma Putra. A non-Sabahan Foreign Minister may not be that sympathetic to the necessity of having a Philippine consulate in Sabah or appreciate the complexities of the growing human tragedy in the state. - FMT