On Sabah, from Ado

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

3/4/2013

Daily Tribune

The following significant piece on the Sabah issue — edited to fit space limits — is from Filipino journalist and diplomat Ado Paglinawan. Ado, as he is fondly called, was a member of the 1986 GRP Peace Panel under Ambassador Emmanuel Pelaez that renegotiated the Jeddah Accord with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). He served as special assistant to the Ambassador and press officer of the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC from April 1986 to February 1994. He also served in the United Nations Philippine Mission in New York. Since 1994, Paglinawan has been performing as a strategic public relations consultant and freelance journalist between Washington DC and Manila, and a missionary for Couples for Christ to Africa and the Caribbean. Ado wrote in the said piece:

"…As national security adviser, (Norberto) Gonzales conspired with Farouk Hussein in 2001 to 'expel' Misuari as chairman of MNLF and engineer its Committee of Fifteen sans Misuari. Hussein became the standard bearer for Gloria Arroyo in the ARMM elections, subsequently serving as Governor. As a result, Misuari declared his intentions to revive his secessionist aspirations and, when accused (of) terrorism by the Arroyo government, escaped to Malaysia. The Arroyo government cancelled his passports; he was eventually deported back to the Philippines. Nur Misuari (was) held as a political prisoner without the benefit of due process of indictment, arraignment, and trial up to the time the Court order(ed) his release in 2008... (which is why) a tale picturing Gonzales, Arroyo, Misuari, and now the Sultanate in cahoots is definitely a looooong stretch of one's imagination.

"…The Arroyo government shifted dalliance with the MNLF to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front when Gonzales became defense secretary … The MoA-AD (Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain) was crafted by Malacañang in conspiracy with British intelligence, the MI6 that James Bond popularized, fronted by the United States Institute of Peace under the tutelage of the US State Department through the American Embassy in Manila. The timely intervention of the Supreme Court prevented the signing of the MoA-AD... (when) it issued a TRO (temporary restraining order) on Oct. 14, 2008 declaring the agreement as 'unconstitutional'… Ambassador Kristie Kenney would immediately disavow any foreknowledge of the MoA-AD, even if she went to Kuala Lumpur to attend the frustrated signing, as public opinion in the country developed to consider the document as an act of treachery…

"The stupid government now under BS Aquino, whose main occupation since he was sworn into office has been mainly to demonize Gloria Arroyo, Xeroxes the MoA-AD, gets Marvic Leonen, a relatively naive professor from the University of the Philippines, to edit the document, changing a few terminologies like Bangsamoro 'state or substate' to 'entity,' and re-introduced the idea to the Filipino people as the Framework Agreement for Bangsamoro. If there is any sabotage going on, it is the Aquino government (that) is guilty of recycling an unconstitutional and treasonous, and discredited trash… to amputate the Republic by reintroducing concepts that are foreign to our Constitution and national interest… gloss(ing) over all considerations involving the claims of the Sultanate of Sulu on Sabah at a time when the British/Malaysian lease on that territory is expiring March 2013.

"…The Aquino government obviously does not know that in 1962, when the British (were) in the process of grabbing Sabah from the Philippines and Sarawak from the Indonesians, the sultanate of Sulu signed an agreement subjugating the claim to Sabah to the Republic of the Philippines. That document, however, had a caveat — a condition that the Philippines will pursue the claim in their behalf. But the contrary is as true — that in the event it does not or fails to do so, the Sultanate reserves the right to pursue the claim on its own… The sultanate (was therefore forced into) action because of the impending expiration of the lease… (and) the turn of events caught the Aquino government by surprise despite a slew and progression of initiatives by the sultanate to all parties involved in the Sabah issue, especially the Philippines and Malaysia, that even the Department of Foreign Affairs did not take these signals seriously. So Aquino now feigning he was caught flatfooted is more of an admission that he has been 'Noynoying'…

"This impostor was installed by the Americans through Smartmatic in the botched 2010 presidential elections that will go down in our history as the state-of-the-art 'dagdag-bawas' automated election system. What is more despicable than that is that it seems 100 million people are expecting him to morph into some 'messiah' that will extradite the Filipino people to kingdom come. It is about time we wake up to the foregone conclusion that this American puppet is instead a time bomb that can ignite the current social volcano in our country evolving into a civil war. Please, the Sabah standoff is no longer in the realm of video games, it is objective reality, a pendant of the imminent destruction of our sovereignty and democracy…"

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