Bogus ‘North Borneo Sultan’ interrupts talk

KOTA KINABALU - A man claiming to be of  “Sultan of North Borneo” interrupted a Sabah Society lecture recently to refute former Chief Minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee’s version of Sabah’s history on the prominence of Brunei’s treaty with the Chartered Company over that of the Sulu Sultanate.

He left the premises at Damai Plaza, Luyang, after being told by Society President Dr Heng that the presentation had to end due to time constraint.

Yong had during the question and answer session given his view on the presentation by Dr Sanen Marshall on “A Sulu Chieftain on East Coast Sabah before Chartered Company Rule”.

Dr Sanen had asked a lady with roots to Jolo in the Philippines whether his lecture had enlightened her about her heritage of the Sulu Sultanate that supposedly had influence over that part of present-day Sabah which still has some traceable oral history among descendants of major rivers in the East Coast, particularly Labuk.

The rival Sultanates controlled rivers called ‘kerajaan’ in direct taxation revenue, ‘kuripan’ via wazirs and other feudalism nobility, and “tulin” or “pusaka” for the pengirans or chieftains’ districts.

Local history enthusiast and researcher Shari Jeffri claimed his family was bequeathed the Sembulan area with the river by the Sultan of Brunei for his clan’s leadership in fighting off Sulu invaders and other pirates.

Yong’s view was that the Brunei sultanate never relinquished its sovereignty over North Borneo to the Sultan of Sulu by any treaty or whatever arrangements and that, hence, the present-day so-called claim over Sabah by heirs of the Sulu Sultanate was highly questionable.

However, according to the “Sultan of North Borneo” who did not clearly make his name known, North Borneo was Sulu property as the Sulu army of old once conquered up to Labuan and captured territory of Brunei – all of which was not mentioned in recorded history.

History records show that on Nov. 29, 1865, Sultan Abdul Mumin of Brunei signed a grant of Banguey Island to American C. Lee Moses, followed by Pangeran Tumongong of Brunei to Joseph William Torrey on May 2, 1866 and on June 21, 1875, the same Pangeran Tumongong of Brunei signed over to Joseph William Torrey, the Grant of Pitan, Sugot, Banggaya, Labok, Kinabatangan, Gagayan, Mumyan together with the islands of Balabac and Palawan.

Both the Sultanate of Brunei and Sulu, signed many treaties with colonial powers, to preserve and protect their interests.

Which poses the question of whether, perhaps, Malaysia should actually make a counter claim against the Republic of the Philippines for resort island of Palawan and Balabac in the Philippine archipelago granted over from the Brunei Sultanate, major key to their South China Sea Spratly islands claim under UNCLOS.

Among the factors that work to the disadvantage of any Sulu Sultanante claim is that the members of the royal household never had any “istana” on any part of the territory on the east coast that it claimed to have jurisdiction over. Also the fact that the Philippines, itself, was declared a republic.