Admin Anne of the Philippine Sabah Claim Forum said in one of her comments yesterday that it was rather sad that some quarters in the Philippines close to the President have been fear mongering - dutifully following the fearmonger strategy adopted by President Aquino, and actively raising the spectre of war, instilling in the hearts of people the fear that if the President so much as raises the Philippine Sabah territorial claim to Sabah with Prime Minister Najib, the Philippines will find itself at war with Malaysia. The advisers to President Aquino are wrong. Their logic devoid of real merit. The President should give Prime Minister Najib the opportunity to present his reply. The President must not allow this instinctive but unjustified fear of war with Malaysia to be the guiding force and instrument of this nation's foreign policy.
Fifty-one years ago, Senator Salonga exhorted Filipinos and their leaders not to cede in to unjustified fear. Fifty-one years later, we still find the same fear mongerers in the upper echelons of Philippine Society. The end result is death and destructions to the lives of the Tausugs in Sabah these last fifty one years and deaths to the Sulu fighters in Sabah today.
It is rather pathetic that after all these years, we still have not found the courage to raise the Philippine Sabah claim and persuade Malaysia to sit down with us to discuss this very important issue.
We ask the Government of Pesident Aquino to to adopt the courageous tack today in order to prevent more Filipino Tausug blood spilling in the hands of Malaysian military in Sabah.
On a side note, I find it rather uncanny that Senator Salonga's introduction to the presentation of facts about the Philippine claim to North Borneo (Sabah) which he published in May 1962, is still very much relevant today:
"At the other end of the line are the faint-hearted souls who cherish a host of vague, nameless fears, and who have not stopped imagining the catastrophic, nuclear wars into which the Philippines would be drawn should it so much as attempt to press the claim to North Borneo, regardless of the merit or validity of such a claim. Responsible quarters confess to no little measure of amusement over the unrestrained enthusiasm, on the one hand, of home-grown nationalists in supporting claims — without adequate study of their validity — of sister countries in Asia over territories held by Western powers, and their unconcealed dread, on the other hand, in espousing a claim — without the slightest inquiry into its possible merit — over a portion of the globe's surface which may belong as a matter of law and equity to Filipinos."
Link here: http://fr.scribd.com/doc/36001427/The-North-Borneo-Question
By Admin SMS
March 5, 2013
Philippine Sabah Claim Forum
Related story: "But what do you want me to do?" ~President Benigno Aquino III
Link: Senator Jovy Salonga's The North Borneo (Sabah) Question:
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