Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. told the Aquino administration on Friday not to put the blame of the Sabah crisis on his father, who tried to retake the Malaysian-controlled island in the 1960s.
He also criticized the way the Aquino government has handled the Sabah dispute. Marcos said that the government has failed.
“They have laid the blame at my father’s door. My father has been dead for 23 years. Yan naman ang gawain nila [That’s what they are used to doing],” he told reporters at the sidelines of the closing ceremony of the GIZ decentralization program.
His father, the late dictator, tried to retake Sabah in a military mission referred to as Jabidah in 1968. The mission, however, ended in the massacre of the Tausugs who were being trained for it.
Reports also said that the Jabidah massacre fueled the discontentment of the Muslims in Mindanao, and later on led to the creation of insurgent groups, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
But the younger Marcos now puts the blame on the current administration of President Benigno Aquino 3rd, the son of the late Senator Benigno Aquino 2nd, who was a staunch critic of the older Marcos.
“The government has forgotten its fundamental function to serve and protect its citizens. It has failed to protect its citizens [in this case]. Whatever the reason for the uprising, Filipinos have been killed,” Marcos said.
“They should’ve immediately negotiated with the Malaysian government to stop the shooting.
They haven’t done that. Instead, they are investigating a conspiracy that has not been proven to exist,” he added.
He was referring to an alleged conspiracy by the President’s detractors and Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram 3rd to sabotage the ongoing peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF.
The senator also gave his two cents regarding Kiram’s decision to send his relatives and followers in Sabah to reclaim their “ancestral homeland.”
The followers of the sultan in Sabah was led by his brother, Sultan Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram.
“The Sultan’s method to make the claim is the basis of our claim to Sabah. To say that the Sultan was wrong in its action is to go contrary to the claim,” Marcos said.
He also criticized the government for its late decision to examine the basis of the claim and the various issues that complicate the matter.
“The actions undertaken were too little, too late. They missed the opportunity to push forward the claim, and protest the actions against our nationals,” he said.
“There has been an absence of policy for the first month. They do not understand the issue. They have no policy,” Marcos added.
The senator also said that the government’s inaction regarding the issue has “most decidedly weakened” the Philippines’ claim over Sabah.
“It undermined the very reason that we have to put forward on the claim,” he said.
Sabah, located southwest of Mindanao, is territorially disputed by the Philippines and Malaysia.
And although it has been widely controlled by Kuala Lumpur since the 1960s when it was ceded to it by the British, the Malaysian government continues to pay an annual lease of P70,000 to the Sulu sultan.
The lease is believed to be in accordance to the agreement signed by the Sultanate of Sulu and the British North Borneo Company in the late 1800s.
The word “padjak” in the Arabic-written agreement has been widely contested to either mean “lease” or “cession.”
Source: http://www.manilatimes.net
