Malaysian consulate in Zamboanga proposed

FORMER SABAH Chief Minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee is urging Kuala Lumpur to put up a consulate in the southern Filipino port city of Zamboanga to further boost trade between Malaysia and the Philippines, reports said.

It was also proposed in the past, but had never pushed through.

Malaysian newspaper Daily Express quoted Lee, also president of the Sabah Progressive Party, said: “Setting up a Malaysian consulate in Zamboanga City is an old idea but raising the issue now is timely due to the existing favourable economic and business atmosphere.”

Lee, according to the report, noted the Philippines remains attractive to Malaysian companies in terms of new and business expansion programs in sectors like agriculture, tourism, infrastructure, information technology and human resource, among other fields.

“I propose for Malaysia to set up a Consulate General in Zamboanga City,” he said, adding, he is convinced President Rodrigo Duterte’s so-called “Mindanao First” policy would be helpful for Zamboanga City and nearby areas.

It was not immediately known if Duterte would approve the putting up of a consulate in Zamboanga. Sabah is being claimed by the Sultanate of Sulu and Duterte previously said that he will assert the claim of the Sultanate of Sulu over Sabah.

But Malaysia vowed to defend the sovereignty of Sabah following Duterte’s remarks the oil-rich state, now home to about half a million Filipinos, belongs to the Sultanate of Sulu.

The Malaysia Digest also reported that Duterte was quoted by the Philippine media that he would never abandon the Sulu Sultanate’s quest to stake its claim on Sabah.

“We are allowing proprietary heirs to talk (with Malaysia). Since it is part of our claim, it will be there as our land,” Duterte was quoted as saying. “What has been the policy will always be the policy of the government especially those for the interest of the country. We have to stake our claim.”

Malaysia has vowed to defend every inch of Sabah’s sovereignty, saying that no one could stake a claim on Sabah that had gained its independence through Malaysia with the agreement of the United Nations in 1963.

Sabah or North Borneo originally belonged to the Sultan of Brunei, who gave it to Sultan of Sulu Salahud-Din Karamat Bakhtiar in 1658 as a reward for helping quell a rebellion.

In 1878, Sulu Sultan Jamalul Alam Kiram leased North Borneo to the Hong Kong-based British North Borneo Company of Baron Gustavos von Overbeck and Alfred Dent for “5,000 Malaysian dollars” a year.

Even after North Borneo became part of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur still pays an annual rent of at least 5,000 ringgit to the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu. (Zamboanga Post)

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