Overlapping interests.

Even when I was still a freshman, my professors were already questioning Malaysia’s involvement as a mediator in the “peace process” between the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Obviously, Kuala Lumpur is not neutral in this conflict. The Malaysians are, and have always been, siding with the secessionists. Proof of this is the fact that their given reason for their threat earlier this year to withdraw from the International Monitoring Team (IMT) echoes MILF’s line back then: that the government was stalling peace by stubbornly insisting on grounding any agreement on the frameworks of the Philippine Constitution. 

Indeed, the hostilities in Mindanao and Sulu have made the Philippines unable to vigorously pursue its claim in Sabah and has enabled Malaysia to strengthen its hold on the said territory. This, along with the fact that it was Kuala Lumpur who had actually helped spark the Moro rebellion as a retaliation to Marcos’ Operation Merdeka, tells us why asking the Malaysians to mediate in the so-called Mindanao “peace process” was a very stupid thing for Manila to do.

I have always maintained that what Malaysia really wants is for the Moro rebellion to either continue or be resolved in favor of the Malaysia-friendly Moro secessionists. And this is confirmed by the Malaysians’ vigorous support for the creation of the de facto independent Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE).

If we take another look at the GRP-MILF memorandum of agreement (MOA) on ancestral domain, we will see that, first, the GRP recognizes that the so-called “Bangsamoros” are a “distinct and dominant” people with inherent right to the areas covered by the BJE and that, second, the relationship between the GRP and the BJE is associative in nature. I’m not a native English speaker but as far as I know, an associative relationship is a relationship between equals. Which means that under the MOA, the BJE government, unlike a state government in a federal set-up, is an equal, not a subordinate, of the central government.

In my book, if the “Bangsamoros” are a “distinct and dominant” people, it means they are not Filipinos. It means they are entitled to self-determination. If the BJE is an equal of the GRP, it means the BJE can unilaterally dissolve its “association” with the Philippines any time.

And if we consider the fact that the BJE shall be entitled to a police and internal security force, which presumably would be better-funded and therefore better-armed than the present-day army of the MILF, we can say that the BJE will not only have the legal and moral reason to secede, they will have the capability to do so as well. 

Now here we see why the Malaysians are hell-bent on pushing both the GRP and the MILF into signing this agreement.

At worst, an independent BJE will serve as a buffer that would prevent the Philippines from pursuing its Sabah claim a la Marcos’ Merdeka. The fact that, according to blogger Manolo Quezon, the future leaders of this BJE “politely point out [that they] will decline to bring up any embarrassing questions concerning Sabah, regardless of how the old sultanate’s borders and territories are used to justify expanding the ARMM in Mindanao itself” underscores this.  

At best,  the BJE could secede from the Philippines and join the Federation of Malaysia. Now this would be the best insurance for Malaysia’s occupation of Sabah for it would make the owner of Sabah, the Sultan of Sulu himself, a Malaysian citizen (or an elector of the Yang Di Pertuan Agong if you may).

Now if you think, like I did, that the resolution of the Sabah dillema would be the sole benefit for Malaysia of the BJE’s integration into the Federation, think again.

In his recent blog entry entitled Greater Malaysia, Manolo Quezon perfectly stretched the nuances of the BJE vis a vis the context of the rivalry for Islamic influence in this region between Indonesia and Malaysia:

If you look at our part of the world, the two contenders for dominance of the Muslims are Indonesia and Malaysia. The Philippines has traditionally allied itself with Indonesia versus Malaysia, but in recent years the Philippine government has fallen under the influence of Malaysia.

Malaysia itself considers Sabah it’s Achilles heel, and since the 1960s has supported secessionist groups among the Moros to keep the Philippine government busy while it embarks on the late 20th and early 21st century version of the Philippines’ own colonization of Mindanao. Except this time, its the Malaysian government pursuing its own version in Sabah. After its influence waned with the MNLF, which gravited to Indonesia and which concluded a peace deal with Marcos and his successors, the Malaysians have taken to funding and giving political support to the MILF. At the very least, this keeps Manila perpetually off kilter; it might actually pay off in terms of a nominally Philippine-affiliated but in reality, pliably pro-Malaysian client state in a future Bangsamoro; it could, at best, result in outright annexation as part of a Greater Malaysian Federation stretching from the border of Thailand, to the borders with Singapore and Indonesia, to the vicinity of Davao -or beyond. This would make for a large, extremely wealthy, country that would keep that other perennial Malaysian rival, Indonesia, off kilter, too.

… and of the Spratlys dispute: 

A Malaysian-friendly Bangsamoro client state (which even now, its future leaders politely point out will decline to bring up any embarrassing questions concerning Sabah, regardless of how the old sultanate’s borders and territories are used to justify expanding the ARMM in Mindanao itself; and which one Moro blogger, as quoted above, could very well be allowed to incorporate Palawan into it) would also be well-poised to project its claims into the Spratleys area:

You can easily imagine the Philippine flags being replaced with Malaysian flags, expanding the scope of the Malaysian claim, based on its expansion of its sphere of influence to the Bangsamoro portion of Palawan, for example.

That this “Greater Malaysian Federation” will make for “a large, extremely wealthy, country” is, I think, an understatement.  I believe it would be a dominant regional power in this part of the world.

This regional power would control the sea lanes where oil exports from the Middle East to China, Northeast Asia and the United States pass through; as well as the potential oil and gas reserves of Sulu Sea and Liguasan Marsh. Should this regional power assertively claim more lands in Mindanao, the Philippines would be defenseless.

And this regional power, by the way, would be against the United States. Which is why I agree with Quezon when he said that among the priorities of the United States in the Mindanao conflict is containing Malaysia.

Of course, as I have said in my previous post, the Americans have their own designs in Mindanao too. But these designs stand in the way of Kuala Lumpur’s. This is why the Malaysians have consistently rejected the idea of the United States being part of the International Monitoring Team (IMT), which, in turn, is the reason why Washington had to resort to using the United States Institute of Peace to work in Mindanao and Sulu for its interests.   

We are therefore seeing cunning maneuvers by the MILF, the Malaysians, and the Amercians at the expense of the Philippines’ sovereignty and territorial integrity.

What’s sad about this is that while the foreigners and the seccessionist are busy protecting their respective interests, the Philippines is selling out its own- just so the bitch can stay in power.