KOTA KINABALU – Putrajaya has been urged to adopt a bolder approach in bringing the so-called Sulu heirs’ debacle to a definitive end.
Legal and historical experts and senior politicians in the state want the government to engage with Manila to resolve the claims.
They also want the government to retrieve missing historic artefacts to support Sabah’s sovereignty and formulate laws to protect it.
Sabah Usno president Tan Sri Pandikar Amin has suggested that the prime minister have a “brotherly” chat with the Philippines’ president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to end the Sulu heirs’ demands.
“We need to appeal to (Marcos Jr.) for his assistance, not on political or rhetorical agenda,” said Pandikar in urging Malaysia to be more aggressive in its approach to kill the Sulu heirs’ claims.
Pandikar said this at the International Arbitration Colloquium 2023 themed State Sovereignty and Immunity in Commercial Arbitration at the Sabah International Convention Centre here today.
He said Putrajaya could have resolved the Sulu sultanate issue much earlier but now had to pay millions of ringgit in legal fees to end the heirs’ claims.
Missing pieces
Former Sabah chief minister Datuk Seri Yong Teck Lee echoed Pandikar’s view.
He said that there are still missing pieces to Sabah’s history that could prove the Sulu demands had no legal basis.
Earlier, Yong noted that Sulu has no legal claim over Sabah, adding that the local museum had also primarily focused on the British era.
He said historical evidence has shown that Brunei had more of an administrative role in ancient times over Sabah than the defunct Sulu sultanate did before 1877.
Better laws
Historian Datuk Danny Wong of Universiti Malaya said historical incidents and treaties recorded prior to Sabah’s independence proved that the Sulu claimants or the Philippines do not have any hold over Sabah.
Meanwhile, several legal experts expressed the need for Malaysia to formulate laws to better protect its states’ sovereignty from disputes like the Sabah-Sulu one.
They said several nations such as the United Kingdom, United States and Singapore have already introduced such laws to protect themselves.
One of the lawyers, Datuk Riroz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin, also pointed out that having relevant laws such as a state immunity act would stamp out the Sulu claims.
The Sulu sultanate’s heirs had earlier pursued legal action in a Spanish court to seek compensation for land in Sabah that had purportedly been leased by their ancestors to a British trading company in 1878. – The Vibes, July 4, 2023
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