The Mindanao Sulu Unification Movement (MSUM) will invoke an ancient China-Sulu Treaty and other international agreements to seek recognition from the United Nations for the ancestral territorial rights of the Sultanate of Sulu, which has been recognized by both the British High Court and the U.S. Carpenter Kiram ruling, placing Mindanao, Sulu, and Sabah under U.S. protectorate.

MSUM, which is composed of the Sultanate of Sulu, Sultanate of Maguindanao, indigenous tribes of Mindanao, and Christians, is seeking a review of the Carpenter Agreement of 1915 to rectify what they call a “historical error” committed in the past.

“Our group is not seceding from the Philippines; we just want to rectify a historical error before the United Nations and unite the Bangsamoro people, the tribal folks, and the Christians in Mindanao to have strong representation in the national and international communities,” said Abraham Idjirani, MSUM convenor and spokesman, in an interview with the Daily Tribune.

He stated that the British High Court had recognized the Sultanate of Sulu as the administrator of the estate territory of North Borneo (Sabah), where powerful nations at the time sent ambassadors to the ancestral kingdom.

“The 32nd Sultan Punjungan Kiram declared during his royal inaugural speech, upon his formal installation to the throne of Sultan of Sulu in 1980, that powerful nations like China, Spain, the UK, and the U.S. used to send ambassadors to his ancestral kingdom. But as time went by, the Sulu Kingdom was transformed into many decades of isolation and became a depressed area until Governor Sakur M. Tan responded during his administration to foster and promote peace and economic development for the well-being of the Bangsa Sug in Sulu,” he said.

He mentioned that the China-Sulu relationship began with the signing of a treaty in the status of independent tributary states in 1405 by Chinese Muslim Admiral Sam Pao, representing Emperor Yong Le of the Ming Dynasty of the Celestial Empire of China, and Sultan Mahashari Maulanech, a Bapara representing the Eastern Kingdom of Sulu.

The treaty embodied mutual trust and agreement between the two ancestral sovereign nations, establishing a policy of non-interference in each other’s affairs.

In recognition of the sovereign person of the East King of Sulu, Emperor Yong Le of the Celestial Empire of China extended an imperial invitation to the Sulu East King, accompanied by a retinue of 325 members, for a 17-day formal visit to China.

Although Arab merchants had first engaged in trade with the Bangsa Suluk people, their purchased Sulu merchandise was traded in Fukien Island, China, using the Sulu Sea and the South China Sea as the China-Sulu Commercial Silk Road in the early 12th century until it was rerouted during American rule.

He emphasized that the China-Sulu Treaty of 1405, which focused on commercial and trade relations, made Sulu attain international prestige as a center of commerce and trade. Traders and merchants from Arabia, Europe, Malacca, Java, Indonesia, and other parts of Asia conducted trading activities with the Bangsa Suluk people. It also established trade with settlements in the Visayas, especially Cebu and Bohol, to meet the foreign traders’ demand for various merchandise with international market value.

While trade relations between the settlements in the Visayas and Sulu were thriving, the first sea battle occurred between the Sulu Royal Fleet and the Spanish Armada prior to the Spanish invasion of Sulu in 1578, disrupting the region’s trade. The Sultan of Sulu entrusted commercial transactions to the Chinese who had already settled in Jolo.

“The sovereignty of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo, or the Bangsa Suluk Nation, known then as the Eastern Kingdom of Sulu, predated the Spanish advent and discovery of the Philippines by more than two centuries,” he added.

The China-Sulu Treaty of 1405, focusing on commercial and trade relations, was sustained until the Sulu Kingdom came under American rule in 1900.

At the height of the Spanish invasion in the 17th century, Emperor Cheung and Sultan Alimud Din I, along with the other three Sultans of Sulu who had visited China before him, held discussions to place the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo, or the Bangsa Suluk Nation, under China’s protectorate. This agreement was nearly concluded and put into operation, had they been able to provide the Celestial Empire of China with maps of Sulu’s encompassing territory and population.

The political theory of a protectorate negotiated with Emperor Cheung was similarly asserted in nearly ten treaties Spain had with the Sultans of Sulu, but with coercive means to acquire territorial rights and jurisdictions over the Sulu Kingdom.

The Spanish adoption of this theory clearly manifested that the Sultan of Sulu possessed sovereignty over his ancestral territories, which encompassed Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, the Zamboanga Peninsula, Palawan, and North Borneo.

The status of protectorate was also promised and committed by the U.S. government through the 1915 Kiram-Carpenter Agreement, which, to this day, remains un-abrogated.

“Anchored on historic facts, MSUM, which encompasses the tri-people—Muslims, Christians, and indigenous people of Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan—stands firmly and resolutely for the rectification of the historical errors upon which the treaties and agreements, since Spanish colonization and American rule, have muddled and shackled the emancipation and functioning of the historic and legal status of their ancestral lands and the institutions that governed them for many centuries,” Idjirani said.