By Tessa Jamandre, VERA Files President Aquino and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak are set to meet in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 27, when Aquino…
Making life worth living.
Tag: Malaysia
By Ellen Tordesillas, VERA Files
Concerned citizens are hauling the Malaysian government to the United Nations for human rights abuses against Filipinos in Sabah, even as they criticized the Philippine government for lack of outrage and action.
Concerned groups and individuals are filing Monday urgent appeals with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay and UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, both based in Geneva, Switzerland.
In their letters, the civil society groups asked the two UN agencies to “urgently intervene so that Malaysia will respect the human rights of the Filipinos in Sabah, recognized under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Of course, the petition would have carried more weight if it were the government seeking international intervention for its people, which should be the case because the government exists for its people.
In fact, it is in the Constitution’s Declaration of Principles and State Policies that (Art. II, Sec. 4) The prime duty of the Government is to serve and protect the people.”
China’s reaction to PH protest: In a regular briefing in Beijing today, spokesman of China’s foreign ministry Hong Lei said: “China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and adjacent waters.”
“China owns sovereignty and jurisdiction over the related sea area, seabed and subsoil,” Hong pointed out.
By Tessa Jamandre
VERA FILES
The Philippines has lodged a diplomatic protest against China’s 9-dash line territorial claim over the whole of South China Sea, a month before President Aquino’s planned state visit to Beijing.
The Philippine protest, dated April 5, was posted by the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) as document No. 000228 on April 8.
But the Philippine government tarried in filing the protest, doing so two years after Vietnam and Malaysia, and a year after Indonesia. Vietnam and Malaysia filed their protest a day after China submitted its 9-dash line map to the UN on May 7, 2009. Indonesia registered its protest a year ago, even if it did not have a claim on the South China Sea.
The map is called “9-dash line” or “9-dotted line” because it shows a series of nine dashes or dotted lines forming a ring around the South China Sea area, which China claims is part of its territory. The area includes the Spratlys group, a cluster of oil-rich islands disputed by five other countries, including the Philippines.
China has been using the map with nine dashes in asserting its territorial claim over the whole of the South Sea. But the map first made its way to the UN body, when China used it to challenge the claim made by Vietnam and Malaysia over their extended continental shelves in the South China Sea.
Under the topic, “Ermita’s Sabah memo”, one of our regulars here, Sulbatz, recalled the story of the Maldanas incident which happened on Sept 26, 1985. I tried to google the Maldanas incident but I only found one line in http://www.usssatyr.com/now.htm
I found two items in yahoo.com. One was a 1994 Inquirer article after the Abu Sayyaf first made its existence public in the Ipil massacre. The article stressed the sensitivity of the Maldanas incident. “Ramos warned against issuing statements blaming the Lahad Datu- Maldanas (Siluag) incident on the Malaysian Armed Forces. Without high-level diplomatic talks on the incident, it could have become a full-blown conflict.” (http://www.nisat.org/blackmarket/asia/Southeast_Asia/Philippines/94.07.31-Abu%20Sayyaf%20Weapons%20Capabilities-%20Foreign%20Supporters%20Listed.html)
The other item is a comment in http://timawa.net/forum/index.php?topic=9598.0. It said “On Sept 26, 1985, 4 foreign gunboats and 3 helicopters attacked the Maldanas islet in Sibutu islands. Initially, Malaysia was blamed it being suggested the attack was in retaliation for a Moro pirate raid on Lahad Datu in Sabah. The Malaysians protested their innocence and subsequently it was felt that the raid came from Vietnam or China in an attempt to spoil relations between the 2 countries.” ( source : Air Wars and Aircraft, 1990)”
I’m glad that Sulbatz shared with us this inside story from an officer’s first hand account:
When Gloria Arroyo’s “special envoys” to Malaysia, minus National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales, met with Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, did they also discuss Sabah?
I’m curious because last Aug. 20, two weeks after the aborted signing of the Malaysian-brokered Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita issued Memorandum Circular 612 titled “Guidelines on Matters Pertaining to North Borneo (Sabah)”
The memo gives four instructions: