Mercy ship sent to Sabah

A mercy ship has been sent to fetch the women and civilians among the armed Filipinos in Lahad Datu.

MANILA: The Philippine government has sent a ship to fetch the women and other civilians among the 180 Filipinos who are holed up in Lahad Datu, in Sabah, the Foreign Affairs Department said Sunday.

The ship, with Filipino-Muslim leaders, social workers and medical personnel on board, sailed from Bongao, Tawi Tawi, to the village of Tanduo in Lahad Datu while talks with the group were under way, said Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario.

“We sent the ship to Lahad Datu on a humanitarian mission. We are deeply concerned about the presence of five women and other civilians in the group, and we urge them to board the ship without delay and return home,” Del Rosario said.

“As we have stated on countless occasions previously, we call on the entire group to go back to their homes and families, even at the same time we are addressing the core issues they have raised. Please do so for your own safety,” he is quoted in the Manila Standard.

Some 180 Filipinos, including about 30 armed escorts, landed in Lahad Datu two weeks ago demanding to be recognized as the Royal Sulu Sultanate Army and said they had a right to remain in Sabah.

The Sulu Sultanate claims ownership of Sabah but the Palace on Sunday took a cautious tone, saying the country’s claim to the territory would be “dealt with at the proper time and under the correct conditions” after the ongoing standoff had been settled.

Deputy presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte, quoting Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II, said a provincial official, a military general and a police general were communicating with Esmail Kiram II to hasten the return of the Filipinos.

Esmail is the brother of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III. Their brother, Agbimuddin, led the Filipinos calling themselves the Royal Sulu Sultanate Army that went to Sabah.

“As the President mentioned a few days ago, there is a team looking at the historical and legal context of the Sabah claim, and it will have to be dealt with separately at the proper time and under the correct conditions,” Valte said when asked if the claim will be pursued.

“In that way we can uphold our national interest but also, on one hand, will not jeopardise the good relations that we have with our neighbour,” she said.

The Philippines has asked the Malaysian government to extend its deadline for the 180 Filipinos holing up in Sabah to leave to Tuesday, Feb 26.

“There is no response from the Malaysian government yet. For now it is the status quo. Even if the original deadline has already lapsed, we have not received reports that they have begun deporting Filipinos in Sabah,” Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said in a phone interview.

Malaysian security forces were said to have cordoned off the area in Lahad Datu where the Filipinos had been holing up to press their claim.

Claim documents confusing

Earlier, President Benigno Aquino III underscored the sensitivity of the issue given close ties between the Philippines and Malaysia.

“Malaysia has not been an enemy for forever. They have been very, very friendly to us and they have been very, very supportive of us. And we have to, as a brother nation in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, also respond (in a friendly manner),” Aquino said.

Aquino has ordered a team of experts to study the status of the Philippine claim on the island state.

But the president admitted that the status of the “source documents” on the country’s claim on Sabah are “confusing”.

Aquino said the government has already started compiling the available data on the Philippine claim on Sabah.

“Among them was the treaty or agreement signed in 1878. It has been amended several times already and in several languages – in English, French and Tausug,” the President said.

“There is a school of thought that says the translations are not faithful translations. There were clarifications that muddled the agreement all the more. So when we ask definitively what is the basis for our claim, the existing documents are quite confusing,” he added.

Aquino said some of the source documents even involved the British and the Germans.

“Everybody was signing a document in his native language. And you wonder how many of them understood what was written on the other copy,” he said.

Aquino said an armed incursion is not the way to move the dispute forward.

-Agencies