Manila ‘revives Sabah claim’ in new maps

Ex-CM warns that state has been included by Philippines in map used for dispute with China

KOTA KINABALU: Former Sabah Chief Minister Yong Teck Lee has warned that the Philippines has revived its claim to Sabah by including the territory in maps which are being used in its dispute with China.

“The Manila Government last week unveiled a 1734 map called the ‘Murillo map’ in their tussle with China over some islands in the South China Sea,” said Yong. “This map supposedly contains the entire territory of the Philippines including the islands in dispute.”

“The disturbing part is that this same map also contains Sabah – named Borney, an old Spanish spelling of Borneo – and is clearly identifiable as the present-day-Sabah.”

He questioned whether the Federal Government was allowing the Sabah claim to linger, in order to scare Sabahans into not fighting for autonomy or secession from the Federation.

Manila and Beijing have locked horns on their competing claims to islands in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea and are pressing their respective claims at the international level.

The heirs of the defunct Sulu Sultanate no longer lay claim to the whole of Sabah but only the territory now covered in the Eastern Sabah Security Zone. However Brunei has contended that it had never handed to Sulu any right to collect tolls along the waterways in the northern part of the zone.

Yong warned that it the Philippines map was held to have legal standing under international law, then the Philippines would have a legitimate claim to Sabah. “At the same time, the Manila Government is raising false hopes among Filipinos that Sabah belongs to them.”

Yong recalled that the Philippines tried to intervene in 2001 during the Malaysia-Indonesia dispute at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the sovereignty of Sipadan and Ligitan Islands in Sabah on the grounds of safeguarding “the historical and legal rights of the Philippines” arising from its claim to sovereignty over North Borneo.

As China did not lay claim to Sabah, Yong said, the Philippines’ claims to the South China Sea should not be based on maps that included North Borneo but only to the islands in dispute. “However, Manila has purposely produced a map including Sabah to place before the international community in its dispute with China,” he said.