What is the point of view of the Filipino Nationalist in the Sabah Issue?

Answer 1

Our Fatherland includes SABAH

by Juan Guerra

We have heard the talk in the past about the territory of Sabah, jointly held by Indonesia and Malaysia, and that past governments have desired to bring it into the fold of our beloved Fatherland. However due to the incessant bickering of our political parties no move to reclaim our territory has ever been made, instead idle posturing and saber rattling is all that resulted.

The Samahan will instead pursue a rigorous policy of expansion into the territory of Sabah, not only that our government shall reclaim it, but that it will also be repopulated by Pilipino (Filipino) nationalists. It is intrinsic that once we hold Sabah we must displace the squatter population there and repatriate the entire area with our people in order to hold our claim.

Now many ask does this mean war? Of course not, we are a civilized nation and an intellectual party, which means that though we prepare for the terrible chance of war, in actual fact we wish only for peaceful negotiations. We will work with the Indonesian and Malaysian governments and work out trade deals or financial restitution in return for the land. Yes we know that this land was ours, that we should simply take it by force and damn the consequences. But this makes not only for bad foreign policy but also senseless death of countless Pilipino (Filipino) citizens.

Some claim that because we desire a strong military and that we will fight for the rights of our people that this means our first action will always be war. No my friends peaceful negotiation must always be the first course of action when working with other nations. The fact that Sabah was ours will lend heavy weight to all our negotiations both regionally and internationally, and that will make it easier for us when we work with our allies to come to a final resolution regarding our national sovereignty.

But to what end is the reclaiming of Sabah going to further the Fatherland and our people? Land my friends, it is about living space and breathing room for our national community, land that we need to house and feed our ever-growing population. Instead of facing a nation that will be over crowded and starved for food, with the inclusion of Sabah we will have vast new territories to spread out in and to farm and feed the Fatherland.

With Sabah we will have a drive to the frontiers, land for those without their own, those that live in Manila, the so called "squatters", will be allowed to travel to Sabah and claim land for free as their own from which they can farm and not only feed their families but help feed the nation. This will relieve much of the pressure on Manila and the resources that the city has at their disposal. The poor will be given a chance to create strong and better lives, with aid from our government and a new series of developmental banks that will provide training and funding to build massive tracks of agricultural lands.

OF course we must take precautions ahead of time to protect from slash and burn policies that the Malays and Indonesians have practiced for years. Killing of the natural world, wiping out animals and plant life that may one day yield beneficial harvests in the medical world. Even the pollution from these slash and burn policies have affected the health and well being of our people in the Philippines, the smoke and carcinogens have made their way to our cities causing worse health risks to our nation then were already there.

No for us the inclusion of Sabah is not only going to be a massive economic boon to all our people, to our agricultural industry, but it will also be a huge boost to our national morale helping to spur on the national economy and bringing the standard of living up for our entire nation. Sabah belongs to us; we must take it back as our historical and divine right. The land belongs to us and it is unjust in the best of light that it continues to be used by foreign governments that wrongfully took away our sovereign rights. We will accept nothing short of repatriation to the Fatherland, though we will work with these nations peacefully to achieve such goals.

Brothers the time has come to watch our nation expand well beyond its borders, to what once was the Philippines of the past. Before cowardly imperialists gave away that which was not theirs to begin with to pay of other foreign governments. It is time that these nations made right the wrongs from the past, to pay back what they have taken from us, and it is time for the rest of the world to recognize the sovereign rights of the Fatherland.