Did you know the people of Sulu and the Bangsamoro once wanted to be part of the United States? As crazy as that sounds it is an actual fact. Yesterday's post about the ongoing insurgency in Mindanao ended with a story about USAID giving money to Maranaos. In the article cited US Embassy Chargé d’Affaires John C. Law noted that the US and Mindanao have a longstanding partnership. This partnership started with the US signing a treaty with the Sultanate of Sulu in 1842 which was a guarantee for the safety of American ships and sailors in case of shipwreck.
The next treaty to be signed between the US and the Sultanate of Sulu was the Kiram-Bates Treaty which
The next treaty to be signed between the US and the Sultanate of Sulu was the Kiram-Bates Treaty which
included the recognition of U.S. sovereignty over Sulu and its dependencies, mutual respect between the U.S. and the Sultanate of Sulu, Moro autonomy, non-interference with Moro religion and customs, and a pledge that the "U.S. will not sell the island of Jolo or any other island of the Sulu Archipelago to any foreign nation without the consent of the Sultan." Also, Sultan Jamal ul-Kiram and his datus (tribal chiefs) were to receive monthly payments in return for flying the American flag and for allowing the U.S. the right to occupy lands on the islands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiram-Bates_TreatyThe Sultan was not inclined to accept U.S. sovereignty over Sulu but was pressured into doing so by his Prime Minister.
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| Sultan Jamalul-Kiram II who signed the Kiram-Bates Treaty |
The reason the Sultan did not wish to accept United States' sovereignty over Sulu is because Spain had never gained sovereignty over Sulu and thus they had no right to cede Sulu to the U.S. via the Treaty of Paris. Sulu had merely become a protectorate of Spain in 1878.
The Kiram-Bates Treaty did not last long and in fact was never meant to last according to Brig. Gen. John C. Bates himself.
The petition the people of Sulu submitted to the President is quite long so only a small part will be reproduced here.
As can be plainly seen the people of Sulu and by extension the Bangsamoro do not see themselves as Filipinos.
That's exactly what it was! The Bangsamoro people do not consider themselves to be Filipinos and any agreement to limited autonomy is merely a calculated step toward the ultimate goal which is the secession of the whole of Mindanao as an independent Moro state. That is what Ancestral Domain is all about. Even MILF and BARMM leader Murad Ebrahim has said decommissioning is not surrender.
One cannot understand the present without understanding the past and this forgotten incident of the people of Sulu and the Bangsamoro leaders petitioning to become a territory of the United States in a move calculated to grant them independence sheds much light on the issues today in Mindanao. Maybe the Senators who crafted the BARMM should have picked up a history book before thinking the BARMM would be a good idea.
The Moro Reader can be accessed for free at Scribd but you will have sign up for a free account to do so.
However, with a close reading of supporting documents from the Philippine Commission, Bates discovered that while Spain ceded their rights to the United States in the Treaty of Paris, the Spanish merely held suzerainty over the Sultanate of Sulu and not sovereignty. Suzerainty means a relationship between two sovereigns (yet unequal) states, where the lesser ("vassal") state cedes certain political controls (such as trade) to the more powerful state, usually in return for some consideration, such as protection. Sovereignty means complete power and authority of one state over another, having only the autonomy granted or permitted by the sovereign power. Otis overlooked this important memorandum which disproved that Spain had a valid basis in international law to include the Sulu archipelago in its cessation of the Philippines to the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiram-Bates_TreatyThe Otis referred to is Gen. Ewell Otis who ordered Brig. Gen. John C. Bates to enter into an agreement with the Sultan of Sulu.
The Kiram-Bates Treaty did not last long and in fact was never meant to last according to Brig. Gen. John C. Bates himself.
In Sulu itself the US initially asserted its claim by making a treaty with the Sultan, the Bates treaty of August 1899. It provided for the recognition of US sovereignty, for respecting the rights and dignities of the Sultan and datus, for non-interference with Islam, for free trade with the Philippines and for co-operation against piracy, for monthly salaries. Much like the Spanish treaty of 1878, it was, as one observer put it, ‘as good and fair as was possible to get under the circumstances, the Americans at that time being anxious to avoid fighting the Sulus and Magindanaos, and everything having to be done in order to conciliate those Mahommedan tribes temporarily and prevent them from arising’. Once the ‘insurrection’ in the north had been suppressed, the Americans were free to deal with Sulu. ‘It was a critical time’, as Bates was to say later, ‘as all the troops were needed in Luzon. The treaty was made as a temporary expedient to avoid trouble.’
The Sultan, Foreman suggested, had signed the Bates treaty ‘in the spirit of Micawber’. For the Americans, he added, it was a wise move, since his inability to enforce it enabled them to set it aside.
Imperialism in Southeast Asia, Nicholas Tarling, pg. 193-194To the cut to the chase here the Moro Rebellion broke out, the Moros were subdued, and the Philippines were soon on the path to independence. But the people of Sulu and indeed the Bangsamoro leaders were much against being made a part of an independent Philippines as they had never considered themselves to be a part of the Philippines.
When the United States government promised to grant independence to the Philippine Islands, the Bangsamoro leaders registered their strong objection to be part of the Philippine republic. In a petition to the U.S. president on June 9, 1921, the people of Sulu archipelago said that they would prefer being part of the United States rather than be included in an independent Philippine nation.
In the Declaration of Rights and Purposes, the Bangsamoro leaders in a meeting in Zamboanga on February 1, 1924, proposed that the “Islands of Mindanao and Sulu, and the Island of Palawan be made an unorganized territory of the United States of America” in anticipation that in the event the U.S. would decolorize its colonies and other non-self governing territories the Bangsamoro homeland would be granted separate independence. Had it happened, the Bangsamoro people would have regained by now their independence under the UN declaration on decolonization. Their other proposal was that if independence to be granted would include the Bangsamoro territories, a plebiscite would be held in Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan fifty years after the grant of independence to the Philippines to decide by vote whether the territory incorporated by the government of the Islands of Luzon and Visayas, would be a territory of the United States, or become independent. The fifty-year period ended in 1996, the same year the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Philippine government signed the Final Agreement on the Implementation of the Tripoli Agreement. The leaders warned that if no provision of retention under the United States would be made, they would declare an independent constitutional sultanate to be known as Moro Nation.
In Lanao, the leaders who were gathered in Dansalan (now Marawi City) on March 18, 1935 appealed to the United States government and the American people not to include Mindanao and Sulu in the grant of independence to the Filipinos.
Even after their territories were made part of the Philippine republic in 1946, the Bangsamoro people have continued to assert their right to independence. They consider the annexation of their homeland as illegal and immoral since it was done without their plebiscitary consent. Their assertions manifest in many forms.
The Moro Reader, pg. 100-101
Petition to the President of the United States of America from the People of the Sulu Archipelago
PREAMBLE
Whereas, the territory now inhabited by the Sulu people was never under the control of Spain, or a part of its dominion, and only upon the advent of the American Army in Sulu did the people of Sulu recognize sovereignty – that of the United States of America, and,
Whereas, the government of Sulu people under the American Government, as administered by General Leonard Wood and Major Hugh L. Scott, and other American military governors following them was a just government, and,
Whereas, the Filipino people in the northern provinces of the Philippine Islands has no right to force their government upon the inhabitants of these parts, inhabited from the time immemorial by our own people, and to include our territory in theirs, and,
Whereas, it would be an act of great injustice to cast our people aside, turn our country over to the Filipino people in the North to be governed by them, without our consent, and the thrust upon us a government not of our own people, nor by our own people, nor for our own people, and therefore,
We, the People of Sulu Archipelago, recognizing our right to petition the great and good Government of the United States of America and in order to form a more perfect understanding between the President of the United States of America, and the Congress of the United States of America, and ourselves, to establish justice in our courts, insure our own domestic tranquility, promote our general welfare, and redress the wrongs and outrages already committed on our people by the present government, do hereby make this our petition to the President of the United States of America, thru his Honorable Commission, General Leonard Wood, and the Honorable W. Cameron Forbes, to wit:
Article I.
Whether or not independence is granted by the Congress of the United States of America to the Northern Provinces of the Philippines, it is [the] desire of the people of Sulu that the Sulu Archipelago be made permanent American territory of the United States of America, and for the following reasons:
1. The people of the Sulu Archipelago are loyal to the American Government, and have been greatly benefited by the said government, and desire to remain under said government.
2. The people of Sulu will realize that if independence is granted to the Philippine Islands, and Sulu Islands are included, the taxes which would necessarily have to be lived upon the people would be too burdensome to endure without open revolt. That where we are paying one peso tax now, we would then be called upon to pay more than ten pesos in taxes.
3. The Philippine Legislature has failed to legislate any laws for the benefit of the Moro people. The Special Form of Government which was inaugurated by General Wood, when Governor of the Moro Province, and which was very beneficial to us, has already been set aside by the past administration.
The Philippine Legislature has failed to work for the benefit of our people. They have failed to recognize our religion. They have failed to pass any laws recognizing our marriages celebrated by our Mohammedan priests, and according to the present laws in force in the Philippine Islands, and also the decision of its courts, our wives are concubines, and our children illegitimate. The Philippine government can not protect our religious customs, nor our marriages, as they have no laws to guide them in these questions.
4. The Philippine Legislature has failed to appropriate sufficient money for the maintenance and construction of roads, the preservation of our health, the maintenance of schools, although draining our treasury of the taxes paid by our people, and appropriating the money for their own purposes in the northern provinces.
5. The Philippine Government has placed their Constabulary among us to preserve law and order. In this connection, they have utterly failed, year after year.
Article II.
We, the people of Sulu ask that law and order be maintained by American troops, as they have in the past treated us justly, they do not steal our property, and they do not mix nor meddle with our women.
Article III.
We, the people of Sulu guarantee that we ourselves will maintain law and order in the event our territory is made a part of the American nation. We feel assured that the American Government at Washington will provide special laws for our people, protecting our religion and our customs, and that under the protecting arm of America we will have just courts, wherein we will receive justice.
Jolo, Province of Sulu, P.I.
June 9, 1921
The Moro Reader, pg. 185-189
Whereas, it would be an act of great injustice to cast our people aside, turn our country over to the Filipino people in the North to be governed by them, without our consent, and the thrust upon us a government not of our own people, nor by our own people, nor for our own people...A great injustice to "turn our country over to the Filipino people." Can it get any more clearer? Remember when the BARMM was being debated in the Senate? Remember what the contentious changes in the document were about?
“Most [of the original BBL provisions] were contentious,” said Sen. Ralph Recto who, along with Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, introduced most of the amendments.
“[Its] framework to begin with is forming a state, which is unconstitutional, until we adopt a federal form of government,” Recto said.
Drilon successfully moved for the inclusion of a provision reiterating “that the Bangsamoro people are citizens of the Republic of the Philippines.” Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, the bill sponsor, said this was opposed by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/996061/house-oks-bbl-bill-but-senate-introduces-contentious-changes
According to House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, the committee not only changed the name of the law but also edited its preamble.
“We accepted mainly what they wanted, but we saw to it [that we retained the phrase] Filipino people’,” Fariñas said in ambush interview after the committee hearing. “The way they crafted it, it was like the Bangsamoro people were speaking of themselves.”
“[So we put in there ‘Filipino people,’ in recognition of their aspirations of the Bangsamoro people and the other inhabitants of Muslim Mindanao,” he added.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1011819/farinas-explains-changes-in-approved-version-of-bangsamoro-measure#ixzz5Lg6ZiI7L"The way they crafted it, it was like the Bangsamoro people were speaking of themselves.”
That's exactly what it was! The Bangsamoro people do not consider themselves to be Filipinos and any agreement to limited autonomy is merely a calculated step toward the ultimate goal which is the secession of the whole of Mindanao as an independent Moro state. That is what Ancestral Domain is all about. Even MILF and BARMM leader Murad Ebrahim has said decommissioning is not surrender.
“I would like to emphasize that the decommissioning doesn’t mean we have given up on what we used to fight for,” Ebrahim emphasized.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1162067/milfs-murad-decommissioning-is-not-surrenderWhat was the MILF fighting for? An independent Mindanao! And Murad says they have not given up on that fight!!
One cannot understand the present without understanding the past and this forgotten incident of the people of Sulu and the Bangsamoro leaders petitioning to become a territory of the United States in a move calculated to grant them independence sheds much light on the issues today in Mindanao. Maybe the Senators who crafted the BARMM should have picked up a history book before thinking the BARMM would be a good idea.
The Moro Reader can be accessed for free at Scribd but you will have sign up for a free account to do so.
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