*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
One evening, after watching a historical film about a once proud maritime kingdom that slowly faded not because it was defeated in one grand war but because it allowed time, fatigue, and negotiation to thin its resolve, I remained seated long after the credits ended. The audience left. The lights rose. Yet I stayed, staring at the blank screen. The film was fiction, yet it felt painfully real. The kingdom in the story lost its territories not in fire but in silence. Not in surrender, but in gradual accommodation. As I walked out into the night, I carried with me an unsettling thought. Our seas, too, are living chapters of history. And we are the ones writing their next lines.
When I think of Sabah, I do not think first of cold arbitration awards or the sterile language of diplomatic notes. My mind wanders instead to the Sultanate of Sulu, established in the fifteenth century—a formidable maritime power that exercised recognized authority over Mindanao, the Sulu archipelago, and the rugged coasts of North Borneo long before modern borders were inked. The heart of the tragedy lies in 1878, when Sultan Jamalul Alam entered into an agreement with Baron de Overbeck and Alfred Dent of the British North Borneo Company. The document, drafted in a delicate mixture of Malay and Arabic (Jawi script), became the seed of one of Southeast Asia's most enduring disputes. The crux of the conflict is a profound misunderstanding about cession. While the English translation utilized the definitive term "cession"—implying a permanent, irrevocable transfer of territory to the British Crown—the Sultan’s understanding, rooted in the Malay term padjak, suggested a lease. To the Sultanate, this was a commercial arrangement for land development, not a surrender of ancestral sovereignty. From this single linguistic fracture, a vast geopolitical divide grew, transforming a 19th-century contract into a 21st-century struggle for national identity.
In 1962, the heirs of the Sultan formally ceded their proprietary rights over North Borneo to the Republic of the Philippines. President Diosdado Macapagal then asserted the Philippine claim over Sabah, framing it as a matter of territorial integrity and historical succession. In 1963, however, Sabah became part of the Federation of Malaysia following a process supported by a United Nations mission that assessed the sentiments of the population. The Philippines did not withdraw its claim, but over time it became diplomatically dormant, overshadowed by regional cooperation within ASEAN and broader strategic concerns.
Decades later, the descendants of the Sultanate initiated arbitration proceedings based on the 1878 agreement. In 2022, an arbitral award granted nearly fourteen point ninety-two billion dollars in favor of the heirs, citing Malaysia’s alleged breach of the agreement when it ceased annual payments after the 2013 Lahad Datu incident. For a brief moment, history seemed to reemerge in a modern legal forum. Yet Malaysia challenged the jurisdiction of the arbitrator, and enforcement efforts were suspended and contested in European courts. The award became entangled in procedural reversals, leaving once again a sense of unfinished closure.
Sabah, to me, is not merely about oil, gas, or minerals beneath its soil. It is about how historical rights, when not anchored in sustained state action, become fragile in the currents of international politics. It is about how sovereignty requires more than memory. It requires consistency.
And then there is the West Philippine Sea.
When I look at the West Philippine Sea, I see more than just a stretch of blue on a map; I see a testament to a nation’s resolve to meet raw power with the rule of law. In 2013, under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, the Philippines took a historic, solitary stand, initiating arbitral proceedings under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to challenge China’s expansive "nine-dash line." It was a David-and-Goliath moment played out in the halls of international justice. The culmination of this journey arrived in July 2016, when the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague delivered a landmark ruling that reshaped the maritime world. The tribunal was unequivocal: China’s nine-dash line had no legal basis under international law, and any "historic rights" were superseded by the signing of UNCLOS. The award did more than just invalidate a line; it restored the geographical identity of the Philippines, affirming that vital features like Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal—the latter being the site of the BRP Sierra Madre—lie firmly within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
It was a victory not of firepower but of documentation. A victory not of fleets but of legal argument.
And yet, the sea did not grow quiet.
Reports of water cannon incidents, maritime standoffs, and gray zone tactics continue. Artificial islands built on previously submerged features remain militarized. Filipino fishermen still speak of intimidation. The arbitral ruling stands as binding under international law, yet enforcement relies on diplomacy, alliances, and strategic calibration rather than immediate compulsion.
Sabah reminds me that a claim can fade when political will wavers.
The West Philippine Sea reminds me that even a clear legal victory demands sustained articulation.
I am deeply aware of the asymmetry involved. China is a global power. Malaysia is a sovereign neighbor with whom we share cultural and economic ties. The Philippines must navigate these realities carefully. We cannot afford reckless escalation. War would devastate our economy, displace our people, and destabilize our region. Conflict often benefits those far removed from its human cost.
But quiet normalization of intrusion carries its own danger. Repeated compromise, if left unexamined, slowly reshapes what is considered acceptable. What begins as tactical restraint must not become strategic surrender.
As a Filipino, as someone who studies governance and believes in disciplined nationalism rather than emotional outbursts, I carry both pride and concern. Pride in the 2016 ruling, which demonstrated that international law still offers space for principled states. Concern that legal documents alone do not patrol coastlines.
When I imagine the fishermen of Zambales casting their nets or the families in Palawan watching news of maritime confrontations, I am reminded that sovereignty is not abstract. It is lived. It is felt. It is tied to food security, energy prospects in Reed Bank, and the simple dignity of not being driven away from one’s own waters.
From the Sultanate of Sulu to Scarborough Shoal, from North Borneo to the Spratly Islands, our story has always been maritime. We are not a people accidentally surrounded by water. The sea is our connective tissue. It is a trade route, a defense line, a livelihood, and an identity.
Sabah was a lesson in how history, when insufficiently defended by sustained state assertion, becomes contested memory.
The West Philippine Sea is a living test of whether we can combine law, diplomacy, alliance building, and national unity into a coherent strategy.
As I think back to that film about the fading kingdom, I realize sovereignty rarely collapses in a single dramatic moment. It erodes in the space between principle and practice. Between what we declare and what we sustain.
I do not advocate anger. I advocate steadiness. I do not call for war. I call for continuity. I do not cling to history as nostalgia. I treat it as a responsibility.
If the shores of Sabah whisper about unfinished chapters and if the waves of the West Philippine Sea echo with tension, then perhaps what they are asking of us is not rage, but resolve. Not noise, but national discipline.
Because in the end, sovereignty is not only about who controls a reef or a coastline. It is about whether a nation loves itself enough to defend its rights wisely, consistently, and without forgetting the lessons written in its own waters.
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