The Territorial Dispute On Sabah In Terms of Phillipinies-Malaysia Research Paper

The Territorial Dispute On Sabah In Terms of Phillipinies-Malaysia Relations - Research Paper Example The dispute in the North Borneo is the territorial dispute that involves Malaysia together with the Philippines over a large area on the eastern part of Sabah. Initially, Sabah was referred to as North Borneo before the Malaysian federation was formed. Through the heritage Sulu’s sultan, the Philippines however retains a claim on Sabah arguing that the territory was merely leased to the British company in North Borneo, in 1878 without relinquishing the Sultanate’s sovereignty . Nevertheless, Malaysia has always considered this particular dispute as a simple issue given that it interprets the agreement of the 1878 as that of cession, and it deems that the Sabah residents had exercised their self determination right because they had voted, in 1963 to join the Malaysian federation .This Sabah issue has always been a sensitive and provocative issue in the shadows of the Malaysia and Philippines relations. Initially, the Sultanate of Brunei owned Sabah until the year of 1658 when its Sultan ceded it to Sulu’s sultan and with payments for his help in quelling the Borneo’s rebellion . In 1978, the Sulu’s Sultan actually signed an agreement with the North Borneo British company for the payment of 5,000 USD per year for the use of Sabah. However, the agreement has a number of versions that depend on the language of the signatories. According to the British contract, the Sultan agrees to give and cede the North Borneo. On the other side, the version of the Tausug explains that the land was only being leased to the then British Company7. In the year 1962, Diosdado Macapangal, who was the then – Philippine president filed a claim to Sabah, which was based on the Sulu’s Sultanate heirs claim on the territory. This issue was further complicated by the assumption of the company’s 1878 contract by the 1963 Malaysian federation (Samad, Peter & Abu Bakar 2013, p68). However, Ferdinand Marcos who was the Macapagal’