Inevitable Sabah rift

Inevitable Sabah rift | Daily Tribune

The first to challenge the Philippines’ petition for an extended continental shelf before the United Nations (UN) was not China but Malaysia.

Kuala Lumpur suspects the Philippines is quietly reviving its age-old claim to Sabah with its petition to the UN, amid the escalating conflict in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

Malaysia submitted a diplomatic note to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week rejecting the Philippines’ petition.

The Philippines is seeking to register its entitlement to an extended continental shelf in the Western Palawan region, defining the seabed areas over which it has sovereign and exclusive rights, including exploitation of its natural resources.

Malaysia noticed, however, that the margin of the extended continental shelf “was projected from the baseline of the Malaysian state of Sabah.”

Thus, it said, the territorial delineation disregarded “Malaysia’s indisputable sovereignty over the state of Sabah.”

While dormant, the Philippines’ claim to Sabah continues, asserting that it is part of its territory under an ancient agreement between the Sultanate of Sulu and the United Kingdom when Malaysia was a British colony.

In 1878, the Sultan of Sulu, who owned Sabah, signed a “permanent lease” agreement with the British North Borneo Company, which the sultan’s heirs to this day interpret as a lease, while Malaysia sees it as a cession.

Malaysia, nonetheless, continued to pay rent to the sultanate which ended in 2013 after the failed invasion of Lahad Datu by poorly armed subjects of the Sulu sultanate who sought to serve an eviction notice on Kuala Lumpur.

An annual “rent” of 5,000 silver dollars, which later became 5,000 ringgit or about P62,000 a year, was paid to the heirs of the sultanate per the 1878 agreement, which stipulated that the lease was “forever and until the end of time.”

Malaysia halted payments in 2013 after the unsuccessful bid to take over Sabah.

Through arbitration proceedings launched in 2019, the Sultanate’s commercial claim on Sabah ballooned to an astonishing $15 billion after Malaysia halted rent payments, thus violating the 1878 deal.

A Spanish arbitrator in France awarded the sum in 2022, saying that it reflected the value of the oil, gas, and palm oil that Malaysia had extracted from Sabah, its second-largest state.

It was one of the largest arbitral awards in history but Malaysia has successfully convinced a French court to suspend the implementation of the award as hearings are held.

Kuala Lumpur has ignored the arbitral proceedings initiated by the Sultanate but had to act after lawyers for the Sulu family launched enforcement claims in jurisdictions where Malaysia holds assets, including Luxembourg and France.

The Malaysian reaction to the current UN petition highlights the need to resolve the Sabah issue even as the Philippines squares off with China over the WPS.

The $15-billion award, for instance, addresses not the territorial dispute itself but the breach of the agreement between Kuala Lumpur and the Sultanate and must be pursued.

The huge amount, according to the sultan’s heirs, can be shared with the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for its development.

The petition for an extended continental shelf before the UN triggered the realization in both Manila and Kuala Lumpur that it is time to put the territorial rift on the table to prevent it from becoming a source of conflict, such as is now transpiring in the WPS.