Aquino wants roadmap on Sabah, marks Jabidah massacre

From InterAksyon (Mar 18): Aquino wants roadmap on Sabah, marks Jabidah massacre



President Aquino lowers the time capsule at the groundbreaking for the Mindanao Garden of Peace on Corregidor Island, scene of the first-ever official commemoration of the massacre of 60 Moro recruits being trained for a special mission to reclaim Sabah 45 years ago. MALACANANG PHOTO

President Benigno Aquino III on Monday ordered Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., the Department of Justice and the Department of Foreign Affairs to draft a Sabah roadmap to peacefully resolve the conflict in the island state.

The President also directed the National Historical Institute to declare the Mindanao Garden of Peace in Corregidor as a historical landmark, as he led the commemoration of the 45th anniversary of the Jabidah massacre.

The massacre of Mindanao recruits by their military handlers in a top-secret plan by the Marcos regime to re-take Sabah from Malaysia, has been commemorated by Moro groups in the past, and today was the first instance that a President has marked the incident. The massacre is widely known to have lit the Muslim insurgency against the Marcos administration.

The then senator Benigno Aquino Jr., the incumbent’s father, had exposed Oplan Merdeka, as the retaking of Sabah was called. Some analysts who followed the events after that said this apparently prompted Malaysia to “take revenge” against the Philippines by allowing the then-newly formed Moro insurgent group in Mindanao to train in Sabah. Among those who was shuttling to and from Sabah and nearby territories for training was Nur Misuari, founding chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

Study team formed earlier

Before Monday’s order for the crafting of a roadmap, Aquino has already formed a team to study the status of the country's claim on Sabah and how the government can move it forward.

The team is composed of the Department of Justice, which will study the legal basis of the claim; DFA to look into the policy; and the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office to do historical research.

The President said the government has already started compiling the available date on the Philippine claim on Sabah.

Aquino on Sunday said the Philippines is open to negotiating with Malaysia and embarking on a rules-based approach to resolve the Sabah claim, similar to the steps taken by Manila to address territorial disputes with Beijing in the West Philippine Sea.

"Let us look at the situation in the West Philippine Sea as an example. Is it not true that, like in the issue of Sabah, we continue to hold firm to principles founded on a rules-based approach, towards a peaceful resolution of the dispute over Bajo de Masinloc? If we were to resort to saber-rattling and violence, the problem would only grow bigger, and in all likelihood, would only carry over to the next generations," the President said.

"We all know that for every action, there is a resultant reaction, and that there are problems that cannot be solved hastily—problems that will only beget more problems if we try to solve them through force or recklessness. What is needed here is a careful and truthful evaluation of the facts, and a subsequent negotiation along those lines, to produce the right solution," he added.

The government has been put in an awkward situation with ASEAN neighbor Malaysia after over 200 followers of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III sailed to Lahad Datu in Sabah on February 12, triggering a standoff with Malaysian authorites that erupted in violence on March 1. Over 60 people have so far been killed, mostly from the side of the sultanate, which continues to receive annual rental payments from Malaysia under an 1878 agreement between the sultanate and a British merchant firm. Britain, former colonizer of Malaysia, had given resource-rich Sabah to the then newly-created Malayan federation despite the fact that the sultanate continued its claim on the territory.

The Aquino government drew flak for statements from Mr. Aquino that pinned the blame entirely on the sultanate’s followers, even though he conceded that bureaucrats working under him had lost a letter from Kiram right after his inauguration in 2010. The Kirams wrote a follow-up letter asking the new administration for a dialogue on the long-neglected Sabah claim, but this too was ignored. The sultan’s wife said he had been pushed against the wall as the government was ignoring them, even while he kept getting reports of how thousands of Filipinos who had lived and worked in Sabah for years were allegedly mistreated by Malaysian authorities.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/57383/aquino-wants-roadmap-on-sabah-marks-jabidah-massacre