P-Noy: Sabah standoff a tragedy like Jabidah massacre

CORREGIDOR ISLAND, Philippines  â€“ The tragedy of the Jabidah massacre 45 years ago is being replayed in the raging hostilities in Sabah involving mostly Filipino Muslims and Malaysian forces.

President Aquino made the comparison yesterday as he led the commemoration of the massacre that took place at an airstrip here now called the Garden of Peace in honor of some 180 young Muslim soldiers recruited by the Marcos regime to launch Operation Merdeka to retake Sabah.

The recruits protested upon learning of their mission and were gunned down by soldiers. Only one, Jibin Arula, survived.

Aquino said Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III and his followers battling Malaysian forces in Sabah seem to have not learned from the lessons of the Jabidah massacre.

“Up to now, we know that there are those who are attempting to use ordinary Moros to push their own selfish agenda. Isn’t it that the developments we are seeing during the past weeks seem to show that history is repeating itself?” Aquino said.

“There are still those who feed them to danger, many risk their safety while the instigators comfortably watch from afar. Instead of telling them, ‘Go home, your lives are important,’ they keep on agitating them, they keep on inciting them, like parts being used as bullets for a hidden agenda,” the President said, apparently in veiled reference to the Kirams.

In commemorating the incident, Aquino said it is important that the nation remembers and keeps in its heart the value of peace.

The Jabidah massacre was believed to have sparked the Muslim rebellion led by Moro National Liberation Front chairman Nur Misuari. It also soured relations with Malaysia, which is also claiming Sabah as part of its territory. 

“What’s happening in Lahad Datu is a tragedy, like the tragedy that happened in Jabidah. But the biggest tragedy is we don’t learn from lessons of the past – that following the law and respecting rules are the only justifiable response to the challenges we are facing,” he said.

He said the Sabah incursion “will only give rise to more conflicts and possibly create problems that will count generations before they can be solved,” Aquino said.

In refusing to leave Sabah, the Kirams said the territory was a reward given to them by Brunei for helping quell a rebellion. They also said Malaysia had been paying rent since Britain’s annexation of the territory to Kuala Lumpur in 1963.

On Feb. 12, some 300 followers of the Kirams – many of them armed – went to Lahad Datu in a bid to renew their claim on the territory. Malaysian forces launched an assault weeks later, killing dozens of the sultan’s followers as well as some civilians.

It was the President’s father, then senator Benigno Aquino Jr., who exposed the Jabidah massacre on March 28, 1968, or 10 days after the killings.

Cost of war

The President lamented that the cost of Kiram’s followers’ foray into Sabah was staggering, even excluding the deaths and psychological trauma experienced by many.

He said the other Filipinos living and working peacefully in Sabah also had to go back to Mindanao. He said this could greatly affect the country’s economy.

Aquino explained the government would have to take care of them and based on estimates, the government would need P4.87 billion every year for the food supplies alone of up to 160,000 families evacuating from Sabah.

For their housing, the President said his administration would have to spend P32 billion and this did not include the properties or pieces of land where the shelters would be built.

There will also be additional schools needed, health insurance policies and other social services to help them live with dignity, Aquino said.

He asked what programs could possibly be sacrificed to fill these needs when there were many other Filipinos who must be given assistance.

“Can we whisper to them, ‘Sorry we have to delay your lives’ improvement?’” Aquino said.

“No matter how hard you try to sympathize, you can’t help but regret, feel sad and get tested in terms of patience – because like what happened in Jabidah, there are people who think of themselves first before their fellow Filipinos,” he said.

On the need to commemorate the Jabidah massacre, Aquino said the country should not forget its past, even the dark episodes.

“Until now, there is no official acknowledgement from the government (that it happened), just like rumors being inserted in books and taught in schools, there are no moves to record this in our history as a wound of our past,” Aquino said.