Statehood movement revival eyed

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — Proponents of the defunct Movement for the Independence of Mindanao (MIM) will seek the help of US Congress to restore the status of Mindanao and Sulu as protectorate of the United States as provided for in the Carpenter-Kiram treaty which declared Mindanao under the protection of the United States.

The leader of the group who requested anonymity told the DAILY TRIBUNE on Monday that Mindanao and Sulu were protectorates of the US before the commonwealth government “illegally” annexed the region to the Philippines in 1935.

“Mindanao was never part of the territory ceded by Spain to the US and the 1898 Treaty of Paris did not bind the Sultanate of Sulu and all other Sultanates in mainland Mindanao and the Indigenous People to adhere to its mandate.”

He said Spain anchored its Cession of all territory of the Sultanate of Sulu on claims of sovereignty through Treaty rights founded on establishing Friendship and Commerce which were not sovereign as Spain had not attained even a form of de facto government in Mindanao and Sulu.

For this reason, the US Government was compelled to negotiate for a peace agreement with the Sultan of Sulu because when Gen. Bates and the American occupying forces in Jolo in August of 1899, their observation made them realize that the Spanish just controlled the walled city built by the Spanish invaders, but outside the wall the Sultan of Sulu continued to exercise sovereign power and authority.

So an agreement known as the Kiram-Bates Treaty/Agreement was entered into and signed on 20 August 1899, he said.

Kiram-Bates treaty

But the Kiram Bates treaty was abrogated in 1904 as the American Politico-Military Authority saw it as a legal obstacle to implement the indivisible sovereignty rights which the United States acquired under the 20 December 1898 Treaty of Paris.

“As a matter of fact, Spain continued to claim de facto government over Sibutu and Cagayan de Sulu now called Mapun Municipality even after the signing of the Treaty of Paris until the US and Spain signed a subsequent Treaty called the Cession of Sulu and Its Underlying Islands on 7 November 1900. The former paid the latter 100,000 US dollar,” he said.

Thus, we can read in Article 1 Section 1 of the Philippine Constitutions that defines the national boundary of the Philippines, quote in part: by virtue of the 10 December 1898 Treaty of Paris..... and the Cessions of Sulu and Its Underlying Islands.... modified by the Convention Treaty of 2 January 1930..... All these referred to all territory ceded and excluded under the 1898 Treaty of Paris.

From that date, the US Government started to execute their rule which met resistance from 1904 to 1913 from the Baof the Sultanate of Sulu in four major battles or full-blown engagements between the American Forces and the Bangsa Sulu People.

The four major battles were the Battle of Bud (Mount) Dahu, Battle of Sinumaan, Battle of Patian and the Battle of Bud Bagsak and many other skirmishes with groups who resisted American occupation and rule.

Despite this, this US used forces to crush the Sultanate of Sulu’s thru its ancestral constituents, the Bangsa Suluk, the resistance continued.

There and then, the US Congress realized the futility of capturing the sovereignty of the Sultanate of Sulu by means of force through the barrels of the guns.

So in 1913, the Department of Mindanao and Sulu was established by the US Congress headed by an American civilian as Governor, Frank W. Carpenter.

Legal luminaries and historians reckoned the said Department of Mindanao and Sulu that encompassed Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan still a separate entity from Luzon and Visayas.

Jones Law

A year after the creation of said Department, the US Congress passed and approved the Jones Law of 1914. The Law threatened the British interest over North Borneo. So the British Crown induced President Woodrow Wilson to order the Harrison Administration to compel the Sultan of Sulu to relinquish his Temporal Sovereignty that encompassed only Sulu Archipelago, Zamboanga Peninsula and Palawan to the US Government with an attribute as Sovereign.

A conference was held between Dept. of Mindanao and Sulu Governor Frank W. Carpenter represented the US Government and Sultan Jamalul Kiram II represented the Government of Sultan of Sulu to discuss the modes and conditions.

The two parties mutually agreed the following (1) the US Government recognized the power of the Sultan of Sulu that are associated with his ecclesiastical authority; (2) the US Government agreed, committed and gave its sacred and solemn promise to place the Sultanate of Sulu under its protectorate and flag; (3) the US Government assured the Sultan of Sulu full measure of protection should the question of North Borneo arise in the future between him and any foreign authority; and, (4) the US Government declared that the termination of the Temporal Sovereignty of the Sultanate of Sulu does not mean and end to his continued Temporal Sovereignty over a territory lying elsewhere outside the Territory under the US jurisdiction.

The Kiram-Carpenter Carpenter Agreement signed on 22 March 1915. and since it was not abrogated by the US Congress it can be revived by Congressional act.

The group leader said the fundamental issue now the Mindanao Independent Movement has to bring out, was the United States’ incorporation of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan to the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935 legal? As it was done without the abrogation of the 1915 Kiram-Carpenter Agreement thru an issuance of a US Congressional Act of the United States Congress.

In the Introductory Statement of the 1915 Kiram-Carpenter Agreement, the US recognized that the Sultanate of Sulu had been for more than 400 years an independent sovereignty prior to the American Occupation and Rule.