checkmate Sabah and Sarawak

The Sabah situation vis-avis the Philippines is more than the Sultan of Sulu’s armed men occupying a town in the state. It is that and Malaysian politics at work. Sabah and Sarawak are the outlying states of the Federation of Malaysian
states. They are in the island of Borneo, the largest island in the world, the source of rich natural resources emerging from forest and marine areas. For a long time, these areas were remote, unfamiliar to peninsular Malaysia, and living a life of their own with ethnic tribes, Chinese immigrants and eventually Filipino and Indonesian elements who came in for the opportunities to earn a living in an underpopulated area.

The discovery of gas and oil, the timber reserves put to use, plantation crops and other agriculture products have made both states big contributors to Malaysian government coffers. Yet there is a clear division between the Peninsular Malaysians and the Sabah and Sarawak states. So much so that in Sabah, the prime minister or head of state is an opposition politician to the Kuala Lumpur government.

I went to Sabah many years ago when Philippine Air Lines still had a direct flight to Kota Kinabalu. KK as it is known was a charming urbanizing area along the sea with new buildings under construction, seafood resaturants galore and a stunning Shangrila Hotel with its own golf course and Mount Kinabalu in the horizon. We went to the “Filipino” market where we expected to see and talk to Filipinos in Tagalog or Ilonggo, but if they were Filipino at one time, they were now Malaysians or from any of the ethnic tribes that predominate in Borneo. And they were speaking something else. The Filipino market specialized in pearls, because traditionally these came from nearby Sulu across the waters. It must have been in the last few decades when the peace and order situation deteriorated in Mindanao that an influx of Filipinos added to the long-term immigrants in the area.

On to Kuching in Sarawak on Malaysian Airlines, we were charmed by the city for its provincial, laid-back air along the river with an esplanade to walk by as well as antique shops selling hand-carved furniture. There was also a street where gold was sold by weight as an investment rather than a fashion accessory. Meaning that the designs were all the same, the weights were different. They also had a thriving silk industry and sold silk batik fashions. And there was a Cat Museum, a world-class repository of the history of cats which as a cat person I thoroughly enjoyed.

More recently, I have been traveling back to Kuching for indigenous Asean textile conferences and have noted a few things. One arrives to Kuching either via Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. I was surprised when flying in from Kuala Lumpur, having passed Malaysian Immigration there, that when I arrived in Kuching, I had to show my passport all over again to their separate Immigration. I found out that Sarawak and probably Sabah have begun to resent the peninsular Malaysians for being what they deem exploitative and opportunistic. Possibly because the revenues from natural resources give the lion’s share to the peninsular government. So much so, that Sarawak in effect controls the entry of peninsular Malaysians. So, as a peninsular Malaysian arriving in Sarawak, one has to show that he is either on a limited vacation in the area or has a job waiting for which the state has allowed the employer to recruit someone from outside the area. No job hunters allowed.

Meanwhile, Malaysian politics has reached some kind of turmoil with the heavy-handed behavior of the government toward the opposition for which demonstrations, riots even and the on-going saga of Anwar Ibrahim’s seeming persecution is part of the scenario. It seems that the opposition has grown and is shown alarming strength with elections imminent.

Worse, with the opposition leader in Sabah (I am not too familiar with Sarawak politics), having distributed so-called identity cards (IC’s) to immigrants, most of them Filipinos and Indonesians, which allows them to vote, there is very real fear in the ruling party that they may lose the elections altogether or come distressingly close to it

The issue of the IC’s has been brewing for some time. They could define the election by having new opposition elements voting. The ruling party considers the issuance of IC’s as indiscriminate and illegal for the most part. They have instituted a Royal Court of Inquiry into the matter. Demographic conditions indicate that IC holders as new immigrants would vote for the government that allowed them in. The original Sabah population is less than two million and the IC holders are close to that (1.7 million).

So, the entry of the Sulu sultanate armed men which has resulted in wholesale eviction, arrest, maltreatment of undocumented immigrants and including Identity Card holders, particularly Filipinos, may be the perfect excuse to eliminate the electoral menace of the latter from their midst.

The merits of the sultan of Sulu’s actions I will not judge. But the effects in Sabah are becoming clear. Politics is at work, not just territorial defense, which makes the picture larger than it appeared earlier.

source:  Manila Times' Column of  Ma. Isabel Ongpin