MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / March 6, 2013) – A Filipino group called Anakbayan has condemned President Benigno Aquino’s handling of the crisis in North Borneo where Malaysian security forces are hunting down members of the Sultanate of Sulu.
More than two dozen people were killed in hostilities in the oil-rich island, just several nautical miles from Tawi-Tawi, since last month when about 200 followers of Sultan Jamalul Kiram landed in the town of Lahad Datu to exert their historical rights over North Borneo.
“Aquino has clearly committed treason when he did nothing as Malaysian forces attacked the Filipinos in Sabah,” Vencer Crisostomo, Anakbayan’s national chairman, told the Mindanao Examiner.
He said Aquino seems to be taking his cue from the Malaysian government and has, from the beginning, failed to take a “sane, patriotic stand” regarding the Sabah claim. “He essentially gave the green light to the Malaysian government to proceed and massacre the Filipinos in Sabah. This is unforgivable, blood is on his hands,” he said.
Crisostomo said Aquino must call strongly on the Malaysian government and the international community to stop the massacre of Filipinos, instead of coming up with “conspiracy theories.”
Aquino has blamed the violence to Sultan Jamalul and his purported financiers. He also ordered authorities to unmask who are those financing Sultan Jamalul.
“Instead of made up stories of ‘conspiracy,’ he should immediately call for the halting of the all-out attack on Filipinos. The real conspiracy here is between Aquino and the Malaysian government, conniving to dispossess the Philippines and the Sultanate of the rightful claim to Sabah,” Crisostomo said.
He said the Sultanate of Sulu and the Philippines have a rightful claim to North Borneo, now called Sabah by Malaysia, which Aquino has continually ignored.
Crisostomo branded Aquino as “a puppet (of Malaysia) and traitor (to the Filipino people).”
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