Welcome to the Sabah Borneo Islands: Locsin welcomes the Asean/ UN and the Military with enthusiastic Sabah: Malaysia’s Or Philippines’?
The veiled and quiescent annoyance in the relationship between the Philippines and Malaysia over the “Sabah Dispute” has suddenly been rekindled by recent exchanges on Twitter between the two top diplomats of both countries.
Just recently, the Philippines Foreign Secretary, Teodoro Locsin Jr. as a reaction to a United States (US) embassy item describing Sabah as part of Malaysia rendered a rectification to the said depiction via a Twitter post by saying that, “Sabah is not in Malaysia if you want to have anything to do with the Philippines.”
The claim by the Philippines Foreign Secretary received an equally fierce reaction from the Malaysian Foreign Minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, who responded through his official Twitter account by saying that he would summon the Philippine ambassador in response to his Philippine counterpart’s tweet on 27 July, 2020.
“This is an irresponsible statement that affects bilateral ties,” Hishammuddin said. “Sabah is, and will always be, part of Malaysia.”
Nevertheless, the scuffle on Twitter between the two diplomats did not end there.
Locsin rebutted his Malaysian counterpart via another Twitter post by saying that he would also summon the Malaysian ambassador in Manila. He said, “No country can tell another what it can and cannot say about what the latter regards as rightfully its own. I am summoning the Malaysian ambassador.”
Likewise, Locsin was also quoted in some news reports as saying that he would revive a departmental office dedicated to Philippine government efforts on the Sabah issue.
Also, a proposal by a Philippine congressional committee to include Sabah in the map of the Philippines to be printed in Philippine passports grabbed headlines in Malaysia too.
In September 2019 -2020, Malaysia issued a strongly worded statement as a warning to the Philippines after Locsin avowed the Philippines’ claim to Sabah on various occasions including his statements on Sabah in a congressional budget briefing.
The statement read: “Any remarks alluding to ‘anachronistic claims’ would be rejected as unfriendly towards Malaysia. Malaysia does not recognise and will never entertain any claims by any party on Sabah.”
Thus, the recent affray between Locsin and Hishammuddin on Twitter to some extent resuscitated the dormant, long-standing but disquieting territorial dispute between the two ASEAN neighbours over the claim on Sabah.
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