1500s-1800s
Sabah or North Borneo was part of the Sultanate of Brunei around the early 16th century. This was during the period when the Sultanate's influence was at its peak. In 1658 the Sultanate of Brunei was purported to have given the north-east portion of Borneo to the Sultan of Sulu as a "gift" in return for the latter's help in settling a civil war in the Brunei Sultanate. In 1761 an officer of the British East India Company, Alexander Dalrymple, concluded an agreement with the Sultan of Sulu to allow him to set up a trading post in the region. This attempt together with other attempts to build a settlement and a military station centering around Pulau Balambangan proved to be a failure. There was minimal foreign interest in this region after this failure and control over most parts of north Borneo seem to have remained under the Sultanate of Brunei.
In 1865 the American Consul of Brunei, Claude Lee Moses, obtained a 10-year lease over North Borneo from the Sultan of Brunei. Ownership was then passed to an American trading company owned by J.W. Torrey, T.B. Harris and some Chinese merchants. They had set up a base and settlement in Kimanis but this too turned out to be a failure due to financial reasons. The rights of the trading company was then sold to Baron Von Overbeck, the Austrian Consul in Hong Kong, and he later obtained another 10-year renewal of the lease. The rights was subsequently transferred to Alfred Dent, whom in 1881 formed the British North Borneo Provisional Association Ltd. In the following year, the British North Borneo Company was formed and Kudat was made its capital. In 1883 the capital was moved to Sandakan to capitalise on its potential of producing timber. In 1888 North Borneo became a protectorate of Great Britain. Administration and control over North Borneo remained in the hands of the Company despite being a protectorate and they effectively ruled until 1942. Their rule had been generally peaceful except for some rebellions, including one led by the Bajau leader Mat Salleh from 1894 to 1900, and another led by the Muruts which is known as the 'Rundum resistance' in 1915.
Second World War and the road to independence
From 1942 to 1945 the occupation and control over North Borneo was taken over by the Japanese forces in the Second World War. The Japanese forces landed in Labuan on January 1, 1942 and assumed control over North Borneo. Bombings during the war resulted in the devastation of most towns in North Borneo, including Sandakan, which was totally destroyed. When Japan lost the war North Borneo was administered by the British Military Administration and in 1946 it become a British Crown Colony. Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu) was chosen to replace Sandakan as the capital of British North Borneo. The Crown continued to rule North Borneo until 1963. On August 31, 1963 North Borneo attained self-government and independence from the British. On September 16, 1963, North Borneo together with Malaya, Sarawak and Singapore formed the Federation of Malaysia and from then on it became known as Sabah.
Philippine claim
The Philippines claims the east part of Sabah as part of its territory, based upon the Sultanate of Brunei's cession of its north-east territories to the Sultanate of Sulu in 1703, because of military assistance given by the latter to the former. However, as the Philippines government itself does not currently acknowledge and recognize the sovereignty of the Sultanate of Sulu, their claim has been drastically weakened. Today quite a significant number of the population are Filipinos, but most of them are refugees who arrived in Sabah in the 70s, and the others are recent migrants seeking a better life. Some Filipino residents have assimilated into Sabahan society. At one point President Ferdinand E. Marcos ordered that all Philippine maps should include Sabah, but this may have been a mere political statement
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This statement is one sided, the person responsible for the writing of this blog needs to read the book of history.
Introduction
The coming of Islam in Southeast Asia revolutionized specific social institution in the region. Islam as a politico-religious institution had triggered the modification and introduction of social institution that shaped the present Southeast Asia. Among to these was the introduction of the sultanate (a developed political tool based on religion) to the region. For the purpose of this research the study will be focused on the development of the Sulu sultanate as part of the greater Malay world and the eventual claim of the Philippines to Sabah (as the political successor of the sovereignty of the Sulu Sultanate).
In the study, backgrounds on the Introduction of Islam in Southeast Asia, and the formation of the Sulu Sultanate will be discussed. The methodology of the study will be thematically not chronological. Instead of being conscious of the timeline, the study will be on the major themes that shaped the sultanate’s Sabah dominion, lease and agreements with western world, the decolonialization of Southeast Asia, and the present claim of the Philippines to the Sabah State.
The word North Borneo, British Borneo or Sabah is used variably in the study. These words are used to that portion of the North Borne Island to which the sultan of Sulu once ruled.
Location
The present day Sabah is the northern part of Borneo island (the third largest in the world). It is bordered by Sarawak on its southwestern, and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) to the south. Sabah has a coastline of approximately 800 to 900 miles and with the South China Sea in the west and north, the Sulu Sea in the northeast and the Celebes Sea in the east. Sabah's total land area is 76,115 sq km(29,388 sq miles). Sabah's population is about 2.5 million. It is 1,961 km from Hong Kong, 1,143 km from Manila, 1,495 km from Singapore, 1,678 km from Kuala Lumpur and 2,291 km from Taipei - note that it is nearer to Manila than Malaysia's capital of Kuala Lumpur.
Sultanate’s Sabah dominion
The sultanate’s connection with Northern Borneo goes back to 1521, as far as the written record is concern, when a Brunei Sultan was married to Sulu princes. This early connection between the two sultanates cemented the familial relationship. This political marriage developed in to politico-military allegiance that in 1704, 183 years later, the Brunei sultan rewarded most of the areas in the north of Borneo to the Sulu sultan as compensation for military assistance provided by the Sulu sultan, thus the Sabah dominion became part of the Sulu Sultanate.
Lease and agreements with western world
The cession (as the Malaysian prefer to interpret it) or lease (as the Sulu sultanate maintain) of Sabah to the British began in the Treaty of 1878 between Baron de Overbeck and His Highness the Sultan Jamal Al-Alam. This was concluded for an annual payment of 5,000 dollars.
The Philippines claim over Sabah.
Contrary to allegations, The Philippine claim had been studied for years before 1962. While serving in the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1946, Diosdado Macapagal, later became President of then Philippines, advocated the Filling of the Claim.
The official filling of the claim took place on June 22, 1962. The claims are of sovereignty, Jurisdiction, and proprietary ownership to North Borneo, Philippines as successor-in- interest of the Sultan of Sulu. In the early part of 1960’s it became an imperative for the Philippines, aside from the strong historical and legal rights, North Borneo is contagious to Philippine territory and vital to its security. At this time (1960’s), communism in the region was in its height and Philippines were anxious that Malaya would succumb to the potent communist threat from the mainland Southeast Asia. Creating a scenario in which a communist territory would be immediately at the southern frontier of the Philippines.
The Philippine anxiety of communist threat did not come, but other form of morbidity developed, from the dynamics of the Muslim separatist movement in the south there evolved more fearful threat terror. The Sabah state of present Malaysia harbored some of the kidnapers, Abu Sayyaf, and Al-Quedah, provoking international concern through widespread violence, domestic terrorists and their vision of establishing independent states.
The British North Borneo Company based their rights from the Grant signed in January, 1878, in it, the sultan of Sulu granted certain concession and privileges to Baron de Overbeck, an Austrian national who was at the time the Austrian Consul-General at Hongkong, and Alfred Dent, a British national, in consideration of an annual rent or tribute of 5,000 Malayan dollars. Dent later brought out Overbeck, and transferred his rights to the British North Borneo Company. The Company was granted a Royal Charter on November 1, 1881.
The Philippine government argues that Overdeck and Dent (the leasors) did not acquire sovereignty or dominion over North Borneo. This is because, according to international law, sovereignty can be ceded only to sovereign entities (e.g. government to government agreement) or to individuals acting for sovereign entities (agreement between leaders of nations). Obviously, Overbeck and Dent were private citizens of their respective country who did not represent for any sovereign entities, instead acted as mere businessmen only who acquired grant of lease from the sultan of Sulu. Hence, neither of them did not and could not acquire sovereignty or dominion.
The Philippine government believes that the Dent, who was granted a Royal Charter in the form of British North Borneo Company by the British government, to which the British Crown derived its claim of sovereignty, was not authorized to acquire sovereignty or dominion. Evidence to this was the official correspondence of Lord Earl Granville, British Foreign Minister at the time, in his letter to the British Minister in Madrid dated January 7, 1882, explaining the character of the Charter Grant of the British North Borneo Company, as follows:
“The British Charter therefore differs essentially from the previous Charters granted by the Crown to the East India company, the Hudson’s Bay Company, the New Zealand Company, and other Associations of that character, in the fact that the Crown in the present case assumes no dominion or sovereignty over the territories occupied by the company, nor does it purport to grant to the Company any powers of government thereover; it merely confer upon the persons associated the status and incidents of a body corporate, and recognizes the grants of territory and the powers of government made and delegated by the sultan in whom the sovereignty remains vested. ” (Italics supplied)
The above letter was done by the British Foreign Minister to explain and respond to the Spanish protest regarding the grant of Royal Charter to the British North Borneo Company. It was not the Spanish crown who made the protest alone; also the Dutch government protested the same. Again Lord Granville maintain, in his letter to the Dutch, that the British North Borneo Company was a mere administrator, and that “British Government assumed no sovereign rights whatever in Borneo.”
The Philippine government therefore, strongly argues that the transfer of rights, powers and interest by the British North Borneo Company to the British Crown is not possible, known as North Borneo Cession Order of 1946 (that took place just six days immediately after the Philippines declared independent by the United States). In the International Law, a transferee (British Crown) cannot acquire more rights than the transferor (British North Borneo Company). In other words, how can the British Crown exercise sovereign rights (in the form of protectorate in 1946), when the British North Borneo Company did not exercise nor assume sovereignty over North Borneo? In other way of stating it, how can the British North Borneo Company transfer sovereignty to the British Crown, which on the first place the company did not have? (In what way you can give things you do not own?).
It has been said that President Manuel L. Quezon of the Commonwealth of The Philippines (the transitional, semi-autonomous government of the Philippines under American sovereignty which preceded the independent republic) “had decided not to recognize the continued existence of the Sultanate of Sulu, particularly in reference to North Borneo.” The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs was not able to find a written record of this statement. Assuming, however, that he made such pronouncement, it was against the Organic Law of the Philippine Commonwealth. Since the power to give and terminate recognition during the Commonwealth Philippines vested only in the Congress of the United States of America (being the colonial power). Aside from the political technicality, International Law dictates that any withdrawal or termination of recognition does not imply the dissolution of the entity affected by the withdrawal.
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