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Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Leave Sulu alone
By Lino Santos
THE government's policy towards the Sulu Archipelago, albeit the Moros in Mindanao, is nothing but an inheritance of what was perceived and practiced by the Spaniards, the Americans and later Filipinos colonizer regimes based in Malacañang.
We can even go backward in time to admit that the Manila government has only inherited bad blood between the Spaniards who came in 1521 and whose memory of their subjugation by the moors in the Iberian peninsula was a thorn in the neck in the building of empires.
History tells us that the Muslims from North Africa conquered the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th-c AD. The Hispanic Christian kingdoms (Castile, above all) fought Wars of Reconquest, which by the mid-13th-c eliminated the Moors from all but the small Southern kingdom of Granada. Granada was conquered in 1492, and in 1502 all professed Muslims were expelled by order of Queen Isabella.
The awakening of Spain to grandeur two decades (1521) later was with the discovery of the Philippines. The formal subjugation of the Filipinos by the Spaniards starting with the Legaspi Expedition (1565) could be traced as the initial start of the problem in Mindanao.
The first (surrogate) revenge against the moors came with the First Spanish Attack on Jolo in June 1578 led by Capt Esteban Rodriguez de Figueroa. He captured Jolo but failed to stay there long. In all, the Spaniards launched over a dozen expeditions to conquer Jolo.
What the Spaniards did not achieve by war, they tried to achieve by diplomacy. The Spaniard signed some seven treaties with various Muslim leaders in Sulu. These did not bring peace between the colonizer and the people who were then comprised as the Sultanate of Sulu.
When the Americans purchase the Archipelago from Spain through the Dec. 10, 1898 Treaty of Paris, the United States (wrongly) initially assumed that the entire Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao and the Sultanate of Sulu was a part of the Republic.
If the Sulu archipelago is a part of the Republic, why did the Americans have to sign several treaties with the Sultanate of Sulu after the signing of the Treaty of Paris? In fact the first treaty signed between the Americans and the Sultanate was just three months later after the signing in Paris.
History attests to this fact, and in a recent write up local political leader, Hadji Limpasan Idjirani says "The Kiram-Bates Peace Treaty upheld a historic political independency and territorial sovereignty of the unconquered Sulu Archipelago. "
"U.S. Army Brigadier General John C. Bates, in representation of U.S. President William McKinley, arrived in Jolo, August 1899, to negotiate for a peace treaty with Sulu's 32nd and last Sultan Mohammad Jamalul Kiram.
Thus, General Bates became first American who had walked on Islamic Moro sovereign territory of Sulu Archipelago."
Aside from the Bates Treaty we also have the so-called Carpenter Agreement which reestablished the status of Sulu and the American occupation army in Mindanao.
Incidentally no one has bothered to check if the 103-year old Treaty is still enforceable to this day. If so , then the United States Government, according to that treaty is duty bound to protect Sulu from aggression.
The Kiram-Bates Peace Treaty of March 20, 1899 upheld a historic political independency and territorial sovereignty of the unconquered Sulu Archipelago. Treaties are bilateral agreements between sovereign countries, as in the case of Island State of Sulu and the United States of America.
U.S. Army Brigadier General John C. Bates, in representation of U.S. President William McKinley, arrived in Jolo, August 1899, to negotiate for a peace treaty with Sulu's 32nd and last Sultan Mohammad Jamalul Kiram.
Thus, General Bates became first American who had walked on Islamic Moro sovereign territory of Sulu Archipelago.
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Idjirani wrote that on June 9, 1921 Sulu Moro leaders petitioned American authorities in Manila and Washington: "To regard them as different from the rest of the people of the archipelago, and either grant them a separate independence or retain them under American rule."
The petition also states that "It is the desire of the people of Sulu that Sulu Archipelago be made a permanent American territory."
Paragraph three of said petition, provides: "Whereas, it would be an act of great injustice to cast our people aside, turn over our country to the Filipinos in the North to be governed by them without our consent, and thrust upon us a government not of our own people, nor by our own people, nor for our own people."
In 1926, the U.S. Congress placed on record a "Declaration of Rights and Purposes" sent to it in 1924 by a group of Sulu Moro leaders, it said: "In the event that the United States grants independence to the Philippine Islands without provisions for our retention under American flag, it is our firm intention and resolve to declare ourselves an independent constitutional sultanate to be known to the world as Moro Nation."
In 1926, U.S. Congressman Robert L. Bacon of New York, introduced House Bill No. 12992, during the first session, 26th Congress, providing for the "Separation of the Islands of Mindanao and Sulu Archipelago from the rest of the Philippines."
Sulu Archipelago would have become a territory of the United States of America, 81 years (1921-2002) ago. Peace and progress in Mindanao and Sulu Archipelago could have taken place under U.S. sovereignty. U.S. military bases might have been established in Mindanao and Sulu Archipelago, according to Idjirani.
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If the above facts are true, as they seem to be, then we ask- what is the Philippine Government doing in Sulu?
It is already set up a structure, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to administer the affairs of the archipelago.
We also have the traditional Sultanate of Sulu in place, complete with a sultan and a council of elders. Most of those in the Sultan's entourage are education and well seasoned leaders, who can possibly restore Sulu to its glory of Pre-Spanish days.
There are some sectors who believe that the Philippine government has overstepped its war of aggression against Sulu started during the Spanish regime.
Aside from maintaining an occupation army of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in Sulu and other areas of the ARMM, why cant the Philippine government allow the 5,000 plus armed and trained men of the former Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) safeguard the archipelago? |
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