2. Let my first words be of congratulation to the President, and to the Government and people of Guatemala, on his unanimous election. We are fortunate indeed, and we have ample reason to congratulate ourselves, that we have him to preside over our deliberations at this session, for he brings to the Presidency eminent personal qualities, the prestige of the high position he holds in his own country, and a brilliant record of involvement in the work of the United Nations. The Philippines is linked to Guatemala by more than bonds of friendship — we share with sister countries of Latin America the rich heritage of the great culture of Spain — and the Philippine delegation takes genuine pride in his election. With our congratulations, we extend to him our assurances of unstinted co-operation in what we hope will be a fruitful session.
3. May I, at the same time, express our profound gratitude to the distinguished Foreign Minister of Romania, His Excellency Mr. Corneliu Manescu, for the wisdom, competence and tact with which he steered the Genera Assembly through its session last year.
4. To our 125th Member, Swaziland, the Philippine delegation extends its congratulations and a warm welcome. We are confident that it will make a meaningful contribution to the work of the United Nations. It is our hope that its people will find in independence the fulfilment of their aspirations for a better and fuller life.
5. Within the last twenty years, more than seventy-five countries have become independent, all of.them with high expectations that independence would bring not only political freedom but also freedom from exploitation, from poverty, from fear. And they have pinned their faith and hope on the United Nations and on the principles enshrined in its Charter. Indeed, for a time we were heartened by the encouraging signs of détente. The start of the peace talks in Paris, the agreement on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [see resolution 2373(XXII)], the increased contacts among nations belonging to different economic and political systems — all these have encouraged the hope for enhanced international co-operation and peaceful coexistence based on the equal rights of nations, large or small. But peace continued to elude mankind’s anxious grasp. In the Middle East, in parts of Africa, in our own part of Asia, war in one form or another is a tragic
reality even as we meet here and pledge ourselves anew to the cause of peace.
6. Only a few weeks ago, the world witnessed another cynical violation of the rules of international law and order prescribed in the Charter of the United Nations. Naked force was applied against a Member of the United Nations by some of its own allies whose representatives have tirelessly championed the principle of peaceful coexistence and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States.
7. Today it is Czechoslovakia. Whose turn will be next? And when the world makes a tally of the results of that deplorable adventure, it must count the loss all Member States have suffered—the set-back to our common desire for the peaceful settlement of disputes and the destruction of the mood of confidence in international relations which we have all been trying so hard to promote. It is our hope that the Soviet Union will quickly correct its terrible blunder and bring about the immediate withdrawal from Czechoslovakia of troops of the Warsaw Pact Powers, leaving the gallant Czechoslovak people to decide their own future.
8. The conflict in Viet-Nam still remains the principal obstacle to peace and stability. The Paris conversations aroused expectations that remain unfulfilled and the pace of the talks has been most discouraging.
9. Nevertheless, the hope remains that, in a few months, the discussions will finally take a more meaningful turn. As one of the countries aiding the Republic of Viet-Nam in its struggle for freedom and existence, the Philippines is deeply interested in any negotiations involving that nation’s ultimate destiny. The Philippines desires to see the South Viet-Namese people secure from internal subversion and external aggression, and guaranteed their right to form and maintain a government of their own free choice.
10. Nothing has happened on the mainland of China or in the outside world which would justify any change in decisions we have previously taken on the question of the representation of China. On the contrary, the Peking régime, by reason of the excesses of its so-called cultural revolution, its warlike policies towards its neighbours, and its continued oppression and persecution of the people of Tibet, has forfeited any right to represent the Chinese people in the United Nations. That right belongs to the Republic of China as a founding Member of the United Nations.
11. Let me now dwell on what the Secretary-General has called the “most crucial and most challenging long-term struggle of this century”, namely, the struggle to narrow the widening gulf between the many countries that are poor and the few countries that are rich. The first United Nations Development Decade is nearing its end and the second Decade is about to begin.
12. The first Decade has seen modest successes in some fields and deepening frustrations in many others. One lesson we must learn from the first Development Decade is this: the second Development Decade will not succeed without a heightened awareness of the need for international co-operation and understanding. There are disheartening signs that many developed countries simply do not care. They have not increased their financial assistance and are not disposed to make changes in their patterns of international trade, technical assistance, investment, and external aid. These are manifestations of “prosperous provincialism” in international life, which the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Mr. Prebisch, has correctly identified as a dangerous phenomenon growing in the affluent countries.
13. A recent sign of this return to isolationism was the action taken by the United States Congress to pare down to the barest minimum American aid to developing countries. The amounts of external aid approved by Congress were the lowest in two decades. Among the victims of the sharp pruning knife of Congress were the Asian Development Bank and the International Development Association. The former was to have received $:200 million and the latter $160 million. These are relatively minor outlays and their elimination underscores the new indifference of the rich countries to the economic needs of the developing countries.
14. The developed countries are, after all, in a position to grant more aid. As a group, their gross national product between 1961 and 1966 grew by an unprecedented 25 per cent, while the net transfer of their resources increased by only 5 per cent. That is why we cannot understand why most of the developed countries have not reached the target of 1 per cent of their gross national product as external aid to the developing countries. Meanwhile, the developed countries spent about $175,000 million for armaments in one year alone. If only 10 per cent of that staggering amount were channelled to foreign aid, this world would be a happier, a kinder and certainly a safer place to live in.
15. The second Session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, held in New Delhi early this year, does not augur well for the success of the second Development Decade. New Delhi gave no clear answers to the immense problems of development. For instance, in New Delhi, the developed countries agreed most reluctantly and only in principle, after intense and bitter negotiations, to the proposal for a generalized system cf non-reciprocal and non-discriminatory tariff preferences and to the aid target of 1 per cent of their gross national product to the developing countries. However, the target date for those goals was not specified. These are, therefore, vague commitments at best, and the developing nations cannot relax their efforts, believing that the battle has been won.
16. There are other areas where the developed countries could be helpful if they wished. We refer to the need to ease the terms and conditions of aid. Some $4,500 million in interest and principal are now being repaid by developing countries. At present rates and terms, net development lending would become negative by 1975. The tying of aid should be reduced to the minimum since tied-aid cuts the benefits to the developing countries by as much as 15 per cent to 20 per cent. It may therefore be said that helping poor nations has become a highly profitable business.
17. Nothing in what we have said exempts the developing countries from their responsibilities. The primary responsibility for development must rest with the developing countries themselves. After all, four fifths of the cost of development must come from domestic financing, and the rest from external sources. The developing countries must re-examine their development goals and objectives. My delegation believes that agricultural development should be given the highest priority, because agriculture will continue to be the main economic activity in the developing countries. There is one revolution in this area which everybody welcomes. It is the so-called “green revolution” that has been brought about by the record production of rice, wheat and corn in a growing number of desperately hungry lands. In the Philippines, we have developed a new strain of rice with unprecedented yields, and sent seeds to all who ask for them. With this new variety, the Philippines will have a rice surplus for the first time in more than eighty years.
18. While according priority to agriculture, we must not neglect industrial development. For we know that, while agriculture may satisfy a nation’s primary necessities, only industrialization can raise its living standards above the level of bare subsistence.
19. We should like to express, at this juncture, the abiding confidence of my Government in the United Nations family of organizations concerned with financial, technical and economic assistance. Our support for their work is amply demonstrated by the recent announcement by the President of the Philippines, Mr. Ferdinand E. Marcos, that the Philippines is increasing its contribution to the United Nations Development Programme for 1969 by 75 per cent from $286,000 to $500,000. The Philippines is also increasing its contribution to the United Nations Children’s Fund by 70 per cent, from $110,104 to $186,860. To the World Food Programme, the Philippines pledged early this year the amount of 686,000 pesos, an all-time high. We hope that these increased contributions from a poor developing country like the Philippines might have some significance in a period of shrinking contributions from some of the developed countries. We are all engaged in a war against poverty, disease, hunger and misery. This is one war we can afford to escalate, and one which would benefit all mankind.
20. It is said that one of the main reasons for the failure of the Development Decade was the serious oversight which resulted in the failure to integrate social with economic development. It is clear that this oversight must be corrected if the second Development Decade is to succeed. The draft declaration for social development [A/7161, annex I], which is on our agenda, sets the pattern for such integrated development, and we urge its adoption at this session.
21. The Conference of Ministers Responsible for Social Welfare held last September in New York has come up with constructive recommendations to achieve social welfare goals through national effort and international co-operation. The Conference declared that social progress is the ultimate aim’ of all development and that a unique opportunity now exists for social welfare to make its full impact on national development. We urge that the Conference’s recommendations to this end be adopted as soon as possible.
22. This year we mark the twentieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The International Conference on Human Rights held last April in Teheran adopted the Proclamation of Teheran. That historic document states, among other things, that the Universal Declaration “constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community” and that it has “created new standards and obligations to which States should conform” These are, in a sense, highly revolutionary affirmations which impose upon all countries the obligation to support measures designed to enhance the capacity of the United Nations to deal more effectively with violations of human rights wherever they may occur. We believe that the proposal to create the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is such a measure, and we urge its early consideration by the Assembly.
23. During this international Year for Human Rights, the one lesson we should bear in mind is that we must never take human rights for granted. We cannot take them for granted so long as the evil of racial discrimination plagues so many national societies, and so long as ore Member State of our Organization, the Republic of South Africa, continues to dignify apartheid as an official policy of the State. We must also recall that, during the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the invading forces took over the newspapers and the radio stations even before they captured the leaders of the Government. The first casualties were freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of information.
24. Permit me to take up now a problem that lately has cast an ominous cloud upon the South-East Asian scene: the dispute between the Philippines and Malaysia over Sabah, which is a large portion of North Borneo. The Philippines contends that it has acquired sovereignty and dominion over Sabah from the Sultanate of Sulu. Malaysia, on the other hand, asserts that it has acquired sovereignty and dominion over the territory from the United Kingdom.
25. The United Kingdom appears to have acquired its alleged sovereignty and dominion from the British North Borneo Company. That Company in turn derived its claim of sovereignty and dominion from Messrs. Overbeck and Dent. Those two gentlemen were the recipients of certain rights and privileges granted by Sultan Mohammed Jamalul Aslam and specified in a document signed by the said Sultan on 22 January 1878.
26. I have before me a photostat of the document that was signed by the Sultan of Sulu on 22 January 1878. It is in the Malay language, written in Arabic. The crux of the dispute concerns the proper interpretation that should be given to this document. The Philippines contends that it is a lease. Our opponents assert that it is a deed of cession or a sale.
27. From the beginning of this controversy on Sabah — first with the United Kingdom and now with Malaysia — the Philippines has endeavoured to have the dispute elevated to the International Court of Justice for decision. We believe that the dispute is a legal dispute. Under Article 36, paragraph 3 of the Charter of the United Nations, legal disputes are, as a general rule, to be referred to the International Court of Justice for decision. Until now, we have not succeeded in getting the United Kingdom or Malaysia to agree to refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice.
28. An important provision of the agreement of 22 January 1878 between the Sultan of Sulu and Messrs. Overbeck and Dent refers to the obligation of the grantees or their successors in interest to pay to Sultan Mohammed Jamalul Aslam and “to his heirs and successors” the sum of $5,500 Malayan annually “until the end of time”. The obligation to pay $5,000 Malayan — which amount was later increased to $5,300 Malayan in 1903 — has been complied with successively by Messrs. Overbeck and Dent, by the British North Borneo Company, and by the British Government. The Federation of Malaysia also respects that obligation.
29. From the date the deed of 22 January 1878 was signed, payment was made annually until the year 1936, when Sultan Jamalul Kiram, then the reigning Sultan, died. The payment was suspended in 1936 because the British North Borneo Company wanted to be certain that the money they paid went to the right party or parties.
30. The late Sultan Jamalul Kiram died childless, but he left a will bequeathing his properties in the Philippines and in North Borneo to certain relatives named in that will. In 1939, upon the suggestion of British officials, the heirs of the deceased had to appear before the Superior Court of North Borneo to prove their right to succeed the deceased. Chief Justice Macaskie of the Superior Court of North Borneo adjudged the heirs of the late Sultan Jamalul Kiram — there were nine of them — as the individuals entitled to receive the amount of $5,300 Malayan annually. Among other things, the Chief Justice stated the following in his decision rendered on 18 December 1939:
“It is abundantly plain that the successors in Sovereignty of the Sultan of Sulu are the Government of the Philippine Islands, but Mr. de Leon contends that the decision of the Philippine courts in the administration suit relating to the late Sultan’s estate precludes that government from asserting any claim to the cession monies. In my view, this is correct. The Philippine Government allowed Sultan Jamalul Kiram to enjoy the cession monies as a private person since 1915; they have made no claim on his death and by a judgement of a Philippine court recognized the right of the private heirs of the Sultan to receive the cession monies.”
31. The pronouncement of Justice Macaskie I have just quoted treats of two subjects. The part which says: “it is abundantly plain that the successors in sovereignty of the Sultan of Sulu are the Government of the Philippine Islands ...” obviously refers to rights of sovereignty, while the remainder of the paragraph refers to the proprietary rights of the heirs. According to Justice Macaskie, the rights of sovereignty go to the Government of the Philippine Islands while the proprietary rights — in the absence of any claim from the Philippine Government — go to the private heirs of the deceased.
32. It may be noted that Justice Macaskie has called the $5,300 Malayan “cession monies”. This is because the plaintiffs in the suit brought before that judge did not have a copy of the original document dated 22 January 1878. The only document they had was the British translation of the deed, the Maxwell-Gibson translation, which called the transaction of 22 January 1878 a cession. This document was attached to the plaintiffs' complaint as one of their exhibits. Justice Macaskie had no other document before him and he had therefore no choice but to call the transaction of 22 January 1878 a “cession”, and the amount of $5,300 Malayan “cession monies”.
33. The position of the Philippine Government on this point is that the Maxwell-Gibson translation of the deed of 22 January 1878 is erroneous. When, late in the year 1946, the Philippine Government finally came into possession of a photostat of the original document of 22 January 1878, in Arabic, it caused a translation to be made of that document. The different translations made of this document — one by the heirs of the late Sultan Jamalul Kiram, another by an American-language expert and a third by a Dutch-language expert — all show that the 22 January 1878 agreement is a lease. It may also be stated that an early translation of the document made in Spain called it “arrendamiento”, or in English, “lease".
34. The important thing to remember here is that Justice Macaskie ruled that the amount of $5,300 Malayan was to be paid to the heirs of Sultan Jamalul Kiram every year up to the end of time. This decision of Justice Macaskie was respected by the British North Borneo Company, by the United Kingdom and by the Federation of Malaysia.
35. If the agreement signed by the Sultan of Sulu on 22 January 1878 were a sale, payment of the purchase price must end some time. But the fact that payment must continue until the “end of time” indicates that the title to the property remained in the grantor — the Sultan of Sulu — while the grantees merely acquired leasehold rights and exercised powers of government expressly delegated to them by the Sultan of Sulu. Furthermore, a lease “until the end of time” is, in effect, the equivalent in English practice of a lease in perpetuity, and this does not exceed ninety-nine years.
36. In addition to the deed of 22 January 1878, the Philippine Government intends to submit to the International Court for its consideration many other documents, among which are the following:
(1) Commission from the Sultan of Sulu appointing Baron de Overbeck, Datu Bandahara and Rajah of Sandakan, also dated 22 January 1878, which expressly states that the Sultan of Sulu was delegating to Baron de Overbeck his powers of government;
(2) The application for a Royal Charter filed by Messrs. Overbeck and Dent on 2 December 1878, which states, among other things, that the Sultan of Sulu was delegating to Baron de Overbeck his powers of government.
(3) The letter of Ear! Granville to Mr. Morier dated 7 January 1882. This letter from the British Foreign Office sets forth the official position of the British as regards the status of the British North Borneo Company after this Company was granted a Royal Charter. In the language of the Earl of Granville:
“The British Charter therefore differs essentially from the previous Charters granted by the Crown to the East India Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company, the New Zealand Company, and other Associations of that character, in the fact that the Crown in the present case assumes no dominion or sovereignty over the territories occupied by the Company, nor does it purport to grant to the Company and powers of government thereover; it merely confers upon the persons associated the status and incidents of a body corporate, and recognizes the grants of territory and the powers of government made and delegated by the Sultans in whom sovereignty remains vested.”
(4) The report of the British Acting Consul-General W.H. Treacher to the Earl of Derby dated 22 January 1878. Mr. Treacher accompanied Baron de Overbeck to Jolo to negotiate with the Sultan of Sulu; he was present before and during the signing of the Deed on 22 January 1878. He acted as adviser to both Baron de Overbeck and the Sultan; and he signed the document as the only witness. His report to his superiors in London, made on the same day the Deed of 22 January 1878 was signed, should therefore carry considerable weight. He explained the basis for fixing the amount of $5,000 Malayan mentioned in the Deed. He stated in his report that at that time the Sultan’s annual income from his dominions in North Borneo was $5,000 Malayan — $3,000 from his pearl fisheries and $2,000 from his birds’ nest caverns. And Mr. Treacher called the grant a concession — not a cession.
37. The Philippine Government has many other documents to present to the Court for consideration. The ones mentioned above have been cited as examples in order to show this body that the settlement of the dispute calls for the consideration and evaluation of agreements, contemporaneous correspondence and other documents which are proper for a judicial body to pass upon.
38. It is obvious even from a cursory examination of the documents to be considered in the determination of the issues involved in the dispute that the International Court of Justice is the organ of the United Nations that should take cognizance of the dispute between the Philippines and Malaysia. It is the body best suited to handle such a
complex dispute.
39. In that case that Malaysia agrees to elevate the dispute to the Court, the Philippines will be prepared to abide by whatever decision that judicial body may render. If the decision of the Court is in favour of Malaysia, that will be the end of the Philippine claim. If the decision is in favour of the Philippines, that will not be the end of the case. For the Philippines is committed to the principle of self-determination and would be prepared to ensure the observance of that principle in Sabah.
40. The position of the Philippines is that the legal settlement should precede the political settlement. By legal settlement we mean adjudication by the Court. By political settlement we mean a settlement based on the results of a plebiscite. Our position was enunciated by the President of the Philippines in a message to the Congress of the Philippines on 28 January 1963, as follows:
“In laying claim to North Borneo in pursuance of the legal and historic rights and the security interests of the Philippines, we recognize the cardinal principle of self-determination of which the Philippines has been a steadfast adherent. In the prosecution of our valid claim, it is agreeable to us that, at an appropriate time, the people of North Borneo should be given an opportunity to determine whether they would wish to be independent or whether they would wish to be a part of the Philippines or be placed under another state. Such referendum, however, should be authentic and bonafide by holding it under conditions, preferably supervised by the United Nations, that would ensure effective freedom to the people of North Borneo to express their true and enlightened will."
41. The Philippines has been charged with a failure to abide by the results of an ascertainment made by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1963. We need not dwell at length on this matter. Suffice it to say that the commitment of the Philippines to welcome the formation of Malaysia was made subject to the final outcome of the Philippine claim. This condition was expressly stated in the following three documents:
(1) Report and Recommendations of the Conference of Foreign Ministers of the Federation of Malaya, the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of the Philippines to their respective Heads of Government, dated 11 June 1963. Paragraph 12 of that document reads:
“The Philippines made it clear that its position on the inclusion of North Borneo in the Federation of Malaysia is subject to the final outcome of the Philippine claim to North Borneo. The Ministers took note of the Philippine claim and the right of the Philippines to continue to pursue it in accordance with international law and the principle of pacific settlement of disputes. They agreed that the inclusion of North Borneo in the Federation of Malaysia would not prejudice either the claim or any right thereunder. Moreover, in the context of their close association, the three countries agreed to exert their best endeavours to bring the claim to a just and expeditious solution by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration, or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the parties’ own choice, in conformity with the Charier of the United Nations and the Bandung Declaration.”
(2) The Manila Accord of 31 July 1963. This Accord signed by President Macapagal, President Sukarno and Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman adopted in toto the report of the Foreign Ministers as quoted above.
(3) The Joint Statement of 5 August 1963. Paragraph 8 of that document reads as follows:
“In accordance with paragraph 12 of the Manila Accord, the three Heads of Government decided to request the British Government to agree to seek a just and expeditious solution to the dispute between the British Government and the Philippine Government concerning Sabah (North Borneo) by means of negotiation, conciliation and arbitration, judicial settlement, or other peaceful means of the parties’ own choice in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations. The three Heads of Government take cognizance of the position regarding the Philippine claim to Sabah (North Borneo) after the establishment of the Federation of Malaysia as provided under paragraph 12 of the Manila Accord, that is, that the inclusion of Sabah (North Borneo) in the Federation of Malaysia does not prejudice either the claim or any right thereunder."
42. I should like to invite particular attention to the phrase “after the establishment of the Federation of Malaysia” used in the Joint Statement of the President of the Philippines, the President of Indonesia and the Prime Minister of Malaya. The thought is clearly expressed in the Joint Statement that after the establishment of the Federation of Malaysia, the Philippines will continue to pursue its claim to Sabah. The Tunku accepted this idea when he agreed to the Joint Statement.
43. Finally, it may be stated that, upon the normalization of relations between the Philippines and Malaysia, in 1966, the two Governments, under the communiqué of 3 June 1966, “agreed to abide by the Manila Accord of 31 July 1963 and with the Joint Statement accompanying it, for the peaceful settlement of the Philippine claim to Sabah,” and further expressed recognition of the “need of sitting together, as soon as possible, for the purpose of clarifying the claim and discussing the means of settling it to the satisfaction of both parties in consonance with the said Manila Accord and Joint Statement”. By agreeing to discuss anew the Philippine claim and the modes of settling it, Malaysia voluntarily forfeited any advantage which it might have acquired under the United Nations ascertainment of 1963.
44. As to the Sabah elections of 1967, they cannot be properly cited as favouring Malaysia’s legal right to Sabah. Only the election of local officials was concerned in the proceedings. The question of whether the people of Sabah wished to remain with Malaysia or to join the Philippines was not asked in the ballots issued to voters, and hence was not squarely put in issue. By no stretch of the imagination could the 1967 Sabah elections be regarded as a plebiscite.
45. The new Federation of Malaysia was proclaimed on 16 September 1963. Several times after that date, the Federation of Malaysia committed itself to discuss with the Philippines the best means of settling the dispute. Towards the end of 1964, through an exchange of aides memoires, the two countries agreed to hold talks on the clarification of the Philippine claim and on the best means of settling it. In a note verbale dated 7 February 1966, the Government of Malaysia put itself on record “that it has never moved away from the Manila Accord of 31 July 1963 and the Joint Statement accompanying it and reiterates its assurance that it will abide by these agreements, particularly paragraph 12 of the said Manila Accord and paragraph 8 of the Joint Statement”. Again on 3 June 1966, through the joint communiqué issued by the two Governments, Malaysia committed itself to abide by the Manila Accord of 31 July 1963, and with the Joint Statement accompanying it.
46. Early this year, on the occasion of the State visit of the President of the Philippines to Kuala Lumpur, another joint communiqué was issued, calling for talks which the Philippines hoped would lead to an agreement on the best means of settling the dispute. Finally, through an exchange of notes in the months of April and May 1968, the two Governments agreed to hold talks in Bangkok for the purpose of clarifying the Philippine claim and discussing the modes of settling it.
47. The talks in Bangkok started on 17 June of this year. For several days the Malaysian delegates asked questions ostensibly to clarify the Philippine claim. All questions asked were answered. However, when the Philippine delegates became convinced that enough questions had been asked and sufficient answers had been given, they proposed that the two groups start a discussion on the modes of settlement. The Malaysian refused.
48. The Philippine delegation then asked the Malaysian delegation whether they would agree to discuss modes of settlement irrespective of a unilateral assessment on their part that the Philippine side had not clarified the Philippine claim to their satisfaction. They gave a written affirmative answer. A short recess followed. When the talks resumed, the Philippine delegates, convinced that the Philippine claim had already been plainly set forth in two volumes of a publication entitled Philippine Claim to North Borneo (Sabah), which had been made available to the Malaysian Government many months before, that enough questions had been asked and sufficient answers already given, and that the period of clarification was over, proposed that the two delegations pass on to a discussion of the modes of settlement. A four-day recess followed, during which the Malaysian delegation announced to the world press that, acceding to the Philippine request, they would discuss modes of settlement at the meeting set for 15 July. When the two delegations met on 15 July the Chairman of the Malaysian panel declared: “I reject your claim. As far as Malaysia is concerned, this exercise under the Joint Communiqué is over and done with". At the next day’s session, when the Filipinos insisted on discussing the modes of settlement, the Malaysians stalked out of the conference room, thus bringing the talks to an abrupt end. The Malaysians had attempted to play the double role of party litigant and judge at the same time.
49. Lately, the international press has been playing up the passage of a Philippine statute allegedly “annexing" Sabah to Philippine territory. Press comments on the law betray a misunderstanding of its provisions. The new law seeks to amend Republic Act No. 3046 which was enacted in 1961 to define the baselines of the territorial sea of the Philippine Archipelago. The new law has two sections only. Section 1 seeks to correct some typographical errors in the technical description of the baselines as defined in the old law. The old law did not include Sabah within Philippine territory. Neither does the new law. In other words, if a new Philippine map were plotted today based on the technical description contained in the new law, Sabah would lie outside that map.
50. The misunderstanding may have been caused by the provisions of section 2 of the new law which reads as follows:
“The definition of the baselines of the territorial sea of the Philippine archipelago as provided in this Act is without prejudice to the delineation of the baselines of the territorial sea around the territory of Sabah, situated in North Borneo, over which the Republic of the Philippines has acquired dominion and sovereignty.”
The “delineation” spoken of in section 2 of the new law is a future delineation which would be made should the Philippines recover Sabah. In other words, if Malaysia agrees to have the dispute elevated to the Court and if that tribunal decides in favour of the Philippines, then a delineation of the new baselines will be made.
51. The law in question was passed in response to a United Nations request for the updating of publications on the law of the sea in the Organization’s “Legislative Series” under publication. Section 2 was inserted in order to protect the Philippine claim and avoid the possible charge that the Philippines has by law implicitly waived the claim by failing to include Sabah’s waters in the delimitation of the Philippine territorial sea.
52. The statement in section 2 of the new law that the “Republic of the Philippines has acquired dominion and sovereignty" over Sabah is not new. It is a restatement of the official position of the Philippines announced many times before by the Philippine House of Representatives in resolutions passed in 1950 and 1962, by Presidents of the Philippines, by Secretaries of Foreign Affairs and by the Philippine delegation to the Anglo-Philippine talks in London in 1963, and by the Philippine delegation to the Bangkok talks in 1968.
53. Cognizant of the indispensable role of regional co-operation in progress and stability, the Philippines has always stood in the forefront of Asian regional endeavours. Within the last two years and a half, we have seen the establishment of three organizations that hold great promise for the future of Asia: the Asian Development Bank, the Asian and Pacific Council, and the Association of South-East Asian Nations.
54. Substantial progress has been made by all three entities. The Asian Development Bank is well established and regularly functioning; the Asian and Pacific Council held its third ministerial meeting last July, and the Association of South-East Asian Nations has several projects already agreed upon and on the way to implementation. Unfortunately, this progress may be hindered by the simmering dispute over Sabah between the Philippines and Malaysia. The danger is especially acute in the Association, whose projects require the close, constant arid active co-operation of the five Member States.
55. In the circumstances the Association and, for that matter, the Council cannot afford to remain indifferent to the dispute. Indeed, the controversy has an importance which transcends the particular interests of Manila and Kuala Lumpur. The dispute is, in fact, a test case and puts squarely before these organizations the question as to whether they have the means and the willingness to resolve controversies between their members. And if their efforts should prove to be unavailing, then the United Nations must take a hand in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter. This question must ultimately be faced for, as between men, disputes can and do arise between States, no matter how close their association. What must concern us really is whether these disputes can be resolved in accordance with the dictates of law and justice.
56. Let me state very clearly that, while the Philippines will persist in pursuing its claim to Sabah with vigour and determination, it will do so only by peaceful means. The Philippine Constitution expressly “renounces war as an instrument of national policy and adopts the generally accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the nations". My country is unconditionally committed to the cardinal principle of the United Nations which outlaws the use of force in international affairs and binds all States to settle their disputes by peaceful means.
57. But, with equal vigour, we invoke the principle that international agreements must be kept and honoured. We therefore expect Malaysia to abide by the Manila Agreements of 1963 wherein it solemnly undertook to
“bring the the claim to a just and expeditious solution by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the parties’ own choice, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations and the Bandung Declaration”.
58. Our respected and beloved Secretary-General, U Thant, in the introduction to his annual report, recommends to all States to have increasing recourse to the International Court of Justice in order to settle their disputes. He writes:
“In my concluding observations last year I drew attention 'to the urgent need for States to have wider recourse, in their relations with other States, to the various means for the pacific settlement of disputes’. In this context I drew attention to the availability of the International Court of Justice, as a principal organ of the United Nations, for the settlement of legal disputes. This year the Court has, for the first time, presented a report to the General Assembly. I believe that it would be to the common interest of the United Nations if the General Assembly and the other principal organs of the United Nations, in addition to the Member States, were to utilize more fully the machinery of the Court in dealing with problems which are capable of solution by legal and judicial processes.” [A/7201/Add.1, para. 168.]
59. In our region, Cambodia and Thailand, and more recently Pakistan and India, agreed to settle their territorial disputes by judicial settlement and by arbitration, respectively. The United Kingdom, which rejected a Philippine proposal to bring the Sabah dispute to the International Court in 1963, when it still controlled the Territory, has, on the other hand, declared its readiness to ask the Court to decide the dispute over British Honduras as well as the dispute over Gibraltar. The British and the Malaysians cannot, therefore, justify their refusal to go to court on the ground that they consider our claim to be without merit. Common sense dictates that they would be more ready to go to court if they considered the Philippine case to be weak than if they considered it to be strong.
60. The Times of London, which can hardly be accused of favouring the Philippine claim, grudgingly admitted in an editorial of 20 September 1968, that “the Filipinos can make out some case” on Sabah and affirmed that “the legal backing of Sabah’s status is nowhere impeccable”. And The New York Times, in an editorial of 27 September 1968, asked a question that must be in the mind of any reasonable person:
“Could not the Philippines and Malaysia agree to submit the question of Sabah to the World Court or to some other impartial third party, as the Philippines President has proposed? If Malaysia’s case is as sound as Kuala Lampur insists, the Malaysians have nothing to fear from such a review.”
61. Territorial disputes have been the cause of some of the bloodiest wars in history. The Philippines, as a party to a territorial dispute, now comes forward to forswear any recourse to violence and to affirm instead that it is prepared to argue its case before a competent tribunal and to accept without reservation the judgement of that tribunal.
62. In a world sorely beset by the doctrine and the practice of violence, the Philippines dares to assert before this body its unshakable faith in the rule of law, its firm belief in peace through law. If the United Nations is to remain faithful to the Charter and true to its vocation, it has an inescapable duty to encourage and support our earnest appeal to the rule of law.
63. In conclusion, I would say that until the Sabah claim is settled pursuant to the solemn undertakings of the two Governments, I hereby make the reservation and put it on record that the Philippine Government cannot and does not recognize the power, competence or authority of the Government of the Federation of Malaysia to represent or speak for the people of the Territory of Sabah or to make any commitment for them before the United Nations or any of its organs, organizations, committees, agencies or conferences.