ABC78
Junior Member
This indecent is a another example of the Philippines failures in governance and leadership. The country is barely governable and is rife with uncontrollable armed groups with territorial ambitions.
Taiwan is not the only country suffering from violent responses from the Philippines. Malaysia has had incursions and other violations of sovereignty by armed filipino citizens which the Philipine government has failed in bringing under control.
Taiwan is not the only country suffering from violent responses from the Philippines. Malaysia has had incursions and other violations of sovereignty by armed filipino citizens which the Philipine government has failed in bringing under control.
Borneo violence spirals into crisis for Malaysia, Philippines
(Reuters) - When dozens of armed Filipinos landed by boat on Malaysia's part of Borneo island last month claiming to be a "royal army" and pressing an obscure historic claim, it seemed like a bizarre incident that would soon be resolved and forgotten.
Three weeks later, 27 people including eight Malaysian policemen have been killed, sparking a political crisis ahead of elections for both the Philippine and Malaysian governments and raising concerns of instability in resource-rich Sabah state.
While the violence has been contained so far to a small corner of Sabah, it signals that militants left out of a peace deal between Manila and the Philippines' main Muslim rebel group could be renewing their focus on the region.
Prolonged insecurity could also affect Sabah's huge palm oil industry and dampen growing investor interest in energy and infrastructure projects in the state, although the main oil fields are far from the trouble.
The group, numbering about 180, say they are descendants of the sultanate of Sulu in the southern Philippines, which ruled parts of northern Borneo for centuries. They are demanding recognition and an increased payment from Malaysia for their claim as the rightful owners of Sabah.
The violence presents Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak with a security headache that could delay an election that must be held by June, adding to nervousness among investors over what could be the country's closest ever polls.
Leaders of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) were discussing delaying the election until beyond April, a senior UMNO official told Reuters. Malaysia's parliament must be dissolved for elections by the end of April, but Najib had been expected to hold the polls as early as late March.
"It will be difficult to hold elections with such a situation going on in Sabah," the UMNO official said.
"Not only is it a security issue, it is going to be a huge election issue that the opposition will manipulate."
Oil majors such as ConocoPhillips (COP.N) and Shell (RDSa.L) have poured in billions of dollars to develop oil and gas fields in Sabah. Chinese companies have been investing in hydro-power and coal mining, and Sabah is a popular tourist spot with pristine beaches, diving sites and rich tropical wildlife.
A standoff with the armed group erupted in bloodshed on Friday when two policemen and 12 militants died in a firefight near a coastal village. Violence hit at least two other locations over the weekend.
IMMIGRATION COMPLICATES CRISIS
Malaysia has rejected the group's renewed claim on Sabah, which was leased by the sultanate of Sulu to a British trading company in the 19th century and later absorbed by Kuala Lumpur. Sulu is a Philippine island chain that lies between Sabah and the Philippines' Mindanao island. The sultan's family are traditional rulers, with no formal political powers.
For Malaysia, the crisis is complicated by the illegal immigration of Filipinos to Sabah, largely to work in palm oil plantations. Sabah's population has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s and the Philippine government says about 800,000 Filipinos now live there.
Sabah residents have been transfixed in recent weeks by a public inquiry into allegations that illegal immigrants were handed identity cards by UMNO in a citizenship-for-votes scheme.
Much of the population in the area affected by the violence has cultural and family links to the southern Philippines -- an hour away by speedboat -- raising doubts over their allegiance.
That could hinder efforts to capture the gunmen and make immigration an awkward issue for Najib. Voters in Sabah, traditionally a bastion for the UMNO-led National Front coalition, could swing the election to the opposition if it can build on recent gains there.
"The problem Malaysia's government faces is the prospect of many of these Sulu people having Malaysian identity cards," said the UMNO source. "Many of them have relatives in Sabah."
Malaysia deported nearly 300 illegal Filipino immigrants on Sunday, a sign that ties between the neighbours could be frayed. Philippine Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario flew to Kuala Lumpur on Monday to urge "maximum tolerance" in dealing with the remaining members of the group.
The crisis could leave Najib's government open to criticism of a lax security response for allowing the gunmen to enter and for not cracking down on them sooner. Forces surrounding the group initially took a softer approach, even giving them food when their supplies ran low.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim criticised Najib on Monday for "weak" leadership on the crisis and called for a special session of parliament to discuss the situation.
Malaysia sent seven army battalions to the region on Monday to reinforce police, state media said.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino, facing congressional elections in May, has come under pressure from opponents for supporting Malaysia's rejection of the group's claim to Sabah, which remains a dormant Philippine policy goal.
Aquino's allies in turn have hinted that the political opposition encouraged the intrusion as a way of undermining the peace deal signed with Muslim rebels last year and embarrassing the government ahead of the May elections.
"ROYAL ARMY" ACTING ALONE?
The trouble looks to be partly the result of the deal signed by the Philippine government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels in October to end a 40-year conflict. That agreement was brokered by Malaysia.
Jamalul Kiram, a former sultan of Sulu and brother of the man Philippine provincial authorities regard as the sultan, said the peace deal had handed control of much of Sulu to the MILF, ignoring the sultanate.
"I think some groups are trying to throw a monkey wrench in the peace process and embarrass the government," said Rex Robles, a retired navy commodore and security analyst in Manila.
Malaysian security officials have said they suspect the involvement of another Philippine rebel group, the MNLF, which is led by Nur Misuari, an opponent of the peace deal. They said the gunmen appeared to be well trained and experienced in combat.
But a senior Philippine security official said Misuari was not believed to be involved because the group in Sabah came from the island of Tawi-Tawi, which is not a known MNLF stronghold.
Prolonged violence could affect the huge palm-oil industry in Sabah, which employs 300,000 legal foreign plantation workers and many more illegal immigrants from the Philippines and Indonesia. Palm oil firms are already experiencing transport delays due to the violence, said one industry official who asked not to be identified. (Additional reporting by Siva Sithraputhran in KUALA LUMPUR; Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Florence Tan in SINGAPORE; Editing by Dean Yates)
Southern Comfort: Latest violence highlights Philippines’ deadly land wars
First time visitors to General Santos City will never fail to notice the vast tracts of idle lands upon landing at the sprawling airport in Tambler.
This once desolate city was known before as the place of gun slinging cowboys and home to more than a handful of ranches and grazing lands. Until the ’70s, General Santos was Mindanao’s livestock capital supplying more than 20 per cent of Metro Manila’s live hogs and cattle requirements.
Pasture leases covering up to 1,000 hectares of lands rested in the hands of pioneers of the once lucrative cattle industry.
The airport, which covers more than 600 hectares, was in fact once part of a pasture lease held by the Alcantaras until its holders waived and ceded their right over the land.
Livestock, however, gave way to fishing as the main economic engine of General Santos City. Even the feedlots that thrived in the ’80s disappeared. No thanks to the 1997 Asian financial crisis that drove the cost of cattle imports from Australia sky high and chased feedlot operators out of business.
But even before that the livestock industry in the city was struggling as restrictions on the importation of meat were lifted when the Philippines joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the ’80s.
Some holders of pasture lease agreements and forest land grazing lease agreements simply gave up their rights. Others held on. While some were able to obtain titles to these supposed state-owned lands. Many got embroiled in land disputes over these pasture and grazing lands.
But conflicts took a turn for the worse when the Indigenous Peoples Right Act (IPRA) was passed in 1997. Many groups claiming to be members of indigenous tribes began asserting supposed ownership of lands held by lease holders. Many more sought financing from parties after making promises for parcels of the land that will be awarded to them. Not a few of these claimants eventually turned bogus. Some claims pitted claimants against each other. And a handful of these conflicts became violent.
On Monday, four people were wounded in a daring assassination attempt that police believe is related to conflicting claims over a pasture lease area right in the city. The shooting of one Hannah Paglangan, her son and two bodyguards as they left a restaurant is the latest incident in a continuing cycle of violence that has already claimed at least a dozen of lives from both sides of two warring factions. Hannah’s husband was earlier killed by unknown gunmen for the same reason. This is not counting handful of the killings in other ancestral domain claim conflicts.
The case of the Paglangans is not an isolated case.
Several leaseholders are also being besieged by claims by groups that have never set foot in the pasture and grazing areas they have been operating and managing since the 1960s. Some holders of existing lease contracts and agreements sometimes have to resort to violent dispersal to prevent the entry of these supposed land claimants.
Claimants have also become emboldened with the backing of politicians and big landowners who themselves are itching to lay their hands on these properties. At least two local government officials now own parcels of lands in one of these pasture lease areas that have been awarded to a group of claimants – even though they are not members of the tribe and even if it is illegal to buy rights from them.
These festering conflicts, some going on for close to a decade now, did not escape notice from the city government.
Early in her term, General Santos City Mayor Darlene Antonio called on the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to cease and desist from issuing certificates of ancestral domain claims and titles of public lands in the city as conflicting claims have been ending in violent deaths.
But the NCIP can only do so muchas its functionaries also operate under the fear of violence. At least two NCIP workers were already killed in the violence related to these ancestral domain claim conflicts.
The city mayor needs to stamp her authority on the situation and say violence must stop.
The first order for the day should be to disarm claimants who have recently figured in violent confrontation.
Next is to weed out the guns for hire that have become the convenient executioners and ‘contractors’ by parties to these deadly conflicts.
General Santos City and the whole of South Cotabato were supposed to be the last frontiers in Mindanao. These two places cannot remain forever as such and earn the notoriety as Mindanao’s Wild Wild West.
Violence and fraud top worries in Philippine elections
MANILA, Philippines >> Despite scattered killings and fears of fraud, Philippine officials say they expect congressional and local elections on Monday to be relatively peaceful after authorities took drastic steps to prevent chaos in one of Asia's most rambunctious democracies.
More than 52 million Filipinos have registered to elect 18,000 officials in the midterm polls, including half of the 24-member Senate, nearly 300 members of the House of Representatives and leaders of a Muslim autonomous region in the south, where Islamic insurgents, al-Qaida-linked gunmen and privately run armies have long been a concern.
The logistical nightmare has been compounded by worries that some of about 80,000 automated counting machines, which are being used for only the second time following 2010 presidential elections, may fail to work in regions grappling with power outages, including the volatile south. About 1,000 portable generators have been transported to problematic areas.
At least 233,000 public school teachers have been deputized as election inspectors to help staff more than 36,000 polling centers but 200 refused to be assigned in four towns in southern Lanao del Sur, a province notorious for deadly election rivalries, and will be replaced by police, officials said.
"We are actually, I would say, 99.99999 percent prepared," Commission on Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes told reporters.
Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Domingo Tutaan said the 125,000-strong armed forces, along with the national police, have been placed on full alert for any emergencies.
"Although there are pockets of violence, leading to some deaths, the whole system is protected," Tutaan said. "We are able to curtail the big threats and we don't see any major disruption."
The military has helped the government in urging candidates to shun violence. An army general took off with his troops aboard two helicopters and dropped leaflets calling for peaceful elections in Masbate, a central province notorious for political killings.
In the latest violence, gunmen killed five people and wounded two mayoral candidates in separate attacks Saturday in the south, including incumbent Mayor Joelito Jacosalem Talaid, who was wounded when about 10 men stopped his car and opened fire in Don Carlos town in Bukidnon province. Four police escorts were killed, police said.
Last month, about 15 men fired on a truck carrying town Mayor Abdul Manamparan and his supporters in southern Lanao del Norte province, killing 13 people including his daughter. It was the worst violence during the campaign.
Philippine elections have long been dominated by politicians belonging to the same bloodlines. At least 250 political families have monopolized power across the country, although such dynasties are prohibited under the 1987 constitution. Congress — long controlled by members of powerful clans targeted by the constitutional ban — has failed to pass the law needed to define and enforce the provision.
In 2009, 58 people, including 32 journalists, were massacred in the country's worst political violence that was blamed on rivalry between two powerful clans in southern Maguindanao province.
Ana Maria Tabunda from the independent pollster Pulse Asia said such dynasties restrict democracy, but added that past surveys by her organization have shown that most Filipinos are less concerned about the issue than with the benefits and patronage they can receive from particular candidates. Voters also often pick candidates with the most familiar surnames instead of those with the best records, she said.
"It's name recall, like a brand. They go by that," she said.
Vote-buying has also been a problem. The Commission on Elections ordered a ban on bank withdrawals of more than $2,440 and the transportation of more than $12,200 from Wednesday through Monday to curb vote-buying, but the Supreme Court stopped the move.
The court decision disappointed Brillantes, who said vote-buying will certainly happen. He advised voters who are offered bribes by candidates to take the money and run.
"Get the money, then work for the defeat of the one giving money," he said.
