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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 29) Malaysia has launched a diplomatic protest rejecting the Philippines’ territorial claims over Sabah and the Kalayaan Island Group, which covers most of the disputed Spratly Islands.
In an Aug. 27 note verbale sent to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, the Malaysian government said the Philippines’ claim to Sabah, formerly known as North Borneo, “clearly has no basis in international law.” .
“The Permanent Mission of Malaysia also wishes to inform the Secretary General that Malaysia has never recognized the claim of the Republic of the Philippines on the Malaysian state of Sabah,” the document reads.
It also rejected Manila’s “excessive maritime claims” over the entire Kalayaan Island Group in the Western Philippine Sea.
Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Ed Meñez said the government “is aware” of Malaysia’s move and is studying “whether a public response is convenient for us.”
Malaysia’s diplomatic note was in response to one presented by Manila in March, where it protested Kuala Lumpur’s attempt to extend the limits of its continental shelf, covering parts of the Kalayaan Group of Islands. The Philippines emphasized that it has sovereignty over the area, which it considers part of the Palawan province.
“Furthermore, Malaysia’s submission is projected from parts of northern Borneo over which the Republic of the Philippines has never renounced its sovereignty,” the Philippines said in its diplomatic note in March.
The two regional allies have long kept the decades-old dispute on the back burner, but a tweet from Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. recently sparked a public spat.
“Sabah is not in Malaysia,” Locsin tweeted, calling it a “factual statement.” Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein summoned Philippine envoy Charles José for the position, while Locsin responded by saying that he is also inviting the envoy from the other country.
The Sabah dispute
Malaysia has regarded Sabah as its territory since it became part of the Malaysian federation in 1963. Kuala Lumpur maintains that the United Nations and the international community have recognized Sabah as part of Malaysia.
Manila, however, insists that Sabah was simply leased to Malaysia by the Sulu Sultanate, which has ceded sovereignty over the area to the Philippines.
The Sultanate signed a lease on January 22, 1878 with the now-defunct British North Borneo Company over a part of Sabah, which Malaysia absorbed after the British colonizers left. Malaysia has been paying what it considers to be transfer money of RM 5,300 a year to the heirs of the Sulu Sultante until it stopped payments in 2013.
The Philippines has never renounced its rights to Sabah and considers Malaysia’s payments to the Sultan’s heirs as income.
The two neighbors are founding members of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose core principles include cooperation and peaceful dispute resolution. Aside from the Philippines and Malaysia, the self-governing Taiwan, Vietnam and Brunei also have competing claims in the resource-rich South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost entirely.
Lara Tan from CNN Philippines contributed to this report.
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