Aquino also lashed out at unidentified conspirators whom he accused of sending the sultanate’s followers to Sabah last month, saying they had endangered some 800,000 Filipinos living and working in the area.
Speaking at the elite Philippine Military Academy, the president criticised anew the followers of the self-declared Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram III, whose incursion into Sabah has led to dozens of deaths.
“There are problems that just beget more problems if you try to solve them with haste or force. We need sincere and deep discussion if we are to arrive at a correct solution,” he told graduating military cadets.
“We already know how complicated this issue is. Could any Malaysian prime minister so easily agree to let go of a land that for so long has been subject to their laws?” Aquino asked.
More than 200 followers of Kiram, some of them armed, entered Sabah to reassert the sultanate’s centuries-old claim to the area.
Fighting with Malaysian security forces broke out on March 5 and according to Malaysian police figures, 61 of the intruders as well as eight police officers and a soldier have died.
Authorities have arrested more than 100 people in Sabah on suspicion of having links to the militants. The Philippine Navy last week detained 35 suspected Filipino intruders as they tried to sail home.
However Agbimuddin Kiram, the leader of the intruders and the younger brother of Jamalul Kiram III, was not among those detained.
Aquino hinted that the Kirams had hidden backers, saying the incursion in Sabah must have cost a large sum of money.
The spokesman for the Kiram family, Abraham Idjirani, said that the sultanate was forced to take action because the Philippine government would not act on their claim.
He also denied anyone had financed the trip, saying the sultan’s followers did so on their own.
Idjirani said he had spoken to Agbimuddin Kiram by phone late Saturday and he was still in Sabah and unharmed. -- AFP
TIT 4 TAT
ReplyDeleteIn the 1970s UMNo started sponsoring the SoutherN Filipino insurgency.
May now it is the Philippines GOv't'S turn to sponsor one in Sabah?
Presiden Filipina, Benigno Aquino, hari ini berkata, isu tuntutan Kesultanan Sulu ke atas Sabah hanya boleh diselesaikan melalui jalan rundingan.
ReplyDeleteSerangan yang mengancam nyawa tidak harus bermula. Tuntutan ini akan berakhiri dengan pengorbanan yang tidak diperlukan.
DeleteJiak rundingan berhasil, sudah pasti tiada pengorbanan yang tidak diperlukan.
DeletePenceroboh tidak mau berundur, rundingan yang di buat tidak berhasil.
DeleteKetika berucap di Akademi Tentera Filipina, Aquino mengkritik tindakan pengikut Jamalul Kiram III yang menceroboh Sabah dan menyebabkan berpuluh-puluh kematian.
ReplyDeleteJika mereka (Jamalul) cuba menyelesaikan isu tersebut melalui paksaan, ia hanya mencetuskan lebih banyak masalah. Kedua-dua pihak perlu telus dan mengadakan perbincangan secara teliti jika mahu menyelesaikan isu tersebut secara baik.
ReplyDeleteRundingan juag sudah teramat lambat.
DeleteSerangan keras harus dijalankan jika benar penceroboh ini terus bertindak keras.
Delete"Kerajaan Filipina sedar betapa rumit isu yang berlaku dan adakah mana-mana Perdana Menteri Malaysia dengan mudah setuju melepaskan tanah mereka yang telah dimiliki sejak sekian lama,
ReplyDeleteTuntutan Sultan Sulu tidak mungkin akan berhasil.
DeleteTuntutan ini berasakan apa sebenarnya?
DeleteTuntutan yang tidak masuk akal.
DeleteAquino turut membidas tindakan pihak tertentu yang melakukan konspirasi menghantar pengikut Jamalul Kiram ke Sabah pada bulan lalu kerana tindakan berkenaan boleh membahayakan kira-kira 800,000 rakyat Filipina yang tinggal dan bekerja di negeri tersebut.
ReplyDeleteAquino berkata, Kiram dipercayai mendapat sokongan pihak tertentu kerana serangan yang dilakukan di Sabah memerlukan kewangan yang besar.
ReplyDeleteSiapakah dalangnya?
DeleteKerajaan Filipin harus bekerjasama dengan kerajaan Malaysia. Jiak isu ini tidak diuruskan dengan baik, selah akan menjejas hubungan baik kedua negara.
ReplyDeleteBenar. Tindakan yang bijak diperlukan supaya isu ini berakhir dengan wajar.
DeleteWell, whoever planned this catastrophic mess that is benignly called “Sabah standoff,” if indeed it is a conspiracy, must now be laughing his diabolic head off.
ReplyDeleteAn undetermined number of noncombatants have been killed, beaten, jailed and maltreated; lives and livelihoods have been wrecked; several boatloads of refugees have fled to nearby Philippine islands and Zamboanga City, most of them setting foot on these places for the first time in their lives; and local government units and line agencies are straining to do the almost impossible with their limited resources as more boatloads are expected.
DeleteAll the while the rest of us are reeling from trying to make sense of the incomprehensible—the conflicting statements from both sides, the illogical reasoning and barefaced lies; the accusations and counteraccusations; the finger-pointing and the overplayed blame game, while corpses of our unfortunate countrymen are decomposing all over the palm plantations of the “Red Zone” in Lahad Datu, Sabah.
DeleteYet there is no relief from the bizarre. A Navy ship carrying refugees is asked to stay in the waters for four hours just to time its arrival in Tawi-Tawi for the photo ops of Interior Secretary Mar Roxas. And Jacel Kiram, barred by some “elders” from further speaking before media, has turned up on Twitter and Facebook, although it is difficult to believe she is the loose cannon posting the comments because they are so badly-written; a high schooler would have a better grasp of grammar and syntax.
DeleteBut bad grammar in such inflammatory statements is just as disastrous and certain to wreak more irreparable damage in an already chaotic situation that her uncle Esmail Kiram sought to resolve by proposing a “disengagement” (which many interpreted as a face-saving euphemism for “surrender”) in the hostilities between the “royal” forces and the Malaysian military and police forces—a proposal that her father promptly disowned.
DeleteSoon after the armed men landed on the shores of North Borneo (Sabah), Nur Misuari declared that elements of the Moro National Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf were part of the “royal army” that had been training in Tawi-Tawi “since last year.” And in the first few days of the fighting, we received reports that four corpses of Malaysian police had been found and they were mutilated in a so “savage” (a source used the term) fashion that so enraged the authorities who launched a campaign of retaliation from which there is no hope of relief.
DeleteNow comes the Jacel Kiram in Facebook blaming the Malaysians for training the MNLF in the fine art of mutilation. But that is not the only reason that the Tausug in Sabah have become the tragic victims of retaliation.
DeleteThe title of “Sultan of Sulu” that Jamalul Kiram III carries—and which media have consistently and continuously used in referring to him—has its own dire implications. This, coupled with his own insistence that he is acting on behalf of the Sultanate of Sulu, has made all Tausug, who are the rakyat (citizens) of the sultanate, enemies of Malaysia.
DeleteNonetheless, media cannot be blamed for taking the word of a “sultan” in good faith. It could not occur to them that no Sulu Sultan in his right mind would declare himself a Filipino, much less a Filipino citizen, and certainly much, much less that he is fighting to reclaim Sabah “for the Philippines.” To the Bangsa Sug, it would be treason of the basest order.
DeleteAnd deliberately deceived as they were, none in the media noticed the deafening silence of the royal houses and the royal datus of Sulu amid the din of the mind-boggling developments these past weeks.
DeleteNot even a truly royal princess, Dayang Dayang Taj Mahal Tarsum Kiram, granddaughter of Princess Tarhata Kiram, who lives right here in Metro Manila (she also has a beachfront residence in the ancestral property in Jolo that serves as her astanah, or palace, when she visits), has called a press conference to say her piece. And believe me, she has a lot to say. But her grandmother had mentored her, since childhood, on the ways of nobility and the meaning of “martabat,” the guiding principle of Bangsa Sug royalty.
DeleteOr maybe she could just have been stunned to silence by the sight of Cecilia Kiram, a convert to Islam and mother of Jacel, presiding over press conferences and being addressed as “Pangian,” a title that only a royal princess married to a reigning sultan could assume.
DeleteSo mind-boggling indeed, that even media hardly noticed the most sensible voice that came out of the utter senselessness of it all, and from a most unexpected source, a Malaysian official. Datuk Ahmad Maslan, a deputy minister in the prime minister’s department, urged media to stop calling Jamalul Kiram III a sultan, and his followers a “royal army.” The name Kiram was enclosed in quotation marks.
Delete“Stop referring to that terrorist group as the royal army,” Maslan was quoted by the Malaysia State News Agency Bernama as saying, and that “it is also inappropriate to link the Sulu community in Sabah with this group.
ReplyDelete“Evil has nothing to do with the race. One can be evil because of greed, power-greedy, with shallow religious faith and possess animalistic character,” Maslan added.
ReplyDeleteKawalan harus diteruskan. Isu ini masih belum berakhir.
ReplyDeleteDatuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced that most of the objectives of the government's transformation plans were achieved which led to an improvement in the people's living standard, the economy growing well and the financial position of the country to be very strong.
ReplyDeleteThe Prime Minister said the planning and execution of the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and Government Transformation Programme (GTP) not only proved the determination of the government to steer the country based on the "1Malaysia, People First, Performance Now" concept, but were also the boldest experiments ever undertaken by any government in the world in practising the principles of transparency and accountability.
ReplyDelete"GTP, ETP, NKRAs (National Key Result Areas), NKEAs (National Key Economic Areas) and EPPs (Entry Point Projects), were all formulated to improve the lives of all Malaysians in a structured manner.
ReplyDelete"Furthermore, all these initiatives , none other than, are steps by the government to enable each and every Malaysian to gain access to the best that life can offer.
"Jobs with commensurate remuneration, the higher the skills and expertise one possesses, the higher the remuneration," he said
ReplyDelete"As proof of the concern for the problems of the people in shouldering the rising cost of living, the government allocated RM37.8 billion to finance various provisions, RM22.3 billion in subsidies, RM873.5 million for incentives and RM14.6 billion for aid," he said.
ReplyDeleteHe said the amount included the 1Malaysia People's Aid (BR1M) which was extended and expanded to include singles, RM100 schooling aid (1Malaysia School Vouchers) for primary and secondary students and RM250 1Malaysia Book Vouchers for students of higher learning institutions.
ReplyDeleteHe said in addition, the opening of 85 1Malaysia People's shops enabled the people to have an alternative to get their daily requirements at an average cost of 20 to 40 per cent lower than the market price, and 168 1Malaysia clinics that catered to more than six million people at a cost of only RM1 (per patient).
Najib said under the e-Kasih programme, 89 per cent or more than 100,000 people who registered with it were successfully brought out of poverty in just three years.
ReplyDelete