MALAYSIA AND THE PHILIPPINES:
SOME ISSUES IN THE CONTEXT OF
SUSTAINABLE BORDER DEVELOPMENT
I Ketut Ardhana
Abstract
Border issue is considered t o be an important aspect in
t erms of st rengt hening t he relat ionship amongst Sout heast
Asian count ries. This can be underst ood, since on t he one
hand, every count ry in t he region need t o improve it s social,
cult ural, polit ical and economic compet it iveness in order t o
improve t he prosperit y of t he local communit y, and on t he
ot her hand, t here are st ill many crucial problems in t he
context s of human t rafficking, illegal logging, and terrorism.
Therefore, t he count ries need t o develop some effort s in
order t o maintain t he good neighbouring count ries policies
by improving t heir policies in t he border regions.
I. Introduction
Southeast Asia the trade contacts: in the mainland and in the maritime areas. Compared to trade contacts on the Southeast Asian mainland, trade contacts in the Southeast Asian maritime areas are more dynamic and more open because the Southeast Asian maritime area has a significant role in terms of social, economic, and cultural systems in the region (Lamijo in Ardhana, 2009: 234). Inter-relationship in all aspects in the Southeast Asian maritime regions are growing faster than on the Southeast Asian mainland. Some researches in the mainland areas, indicate that societies living on Southeast Asian mainland are more isolated and underdeveloped.
Malaysia and the Philippines are choosen since these countries have similarities in terms of geographical and demographical aspects such as in the same climate, ethnicity, and cultural tradition, even though in some aspects like dominant religions they are actually different. Malaysia and the Philippines are multicultural societies. The societies have their social, cultural, economic and political dynamics since a long time. In one hand, they can live in harmony, but on the other hand they have certain conflicts as well, particularly on the border issues. Amer (2000: 44) notes that there is a certain pattern in managing border disputes amongst the Southeast Asian members. Therefore, to bring such disputes to the ICJ (International Court of Justice) we can see a shortcoming of the ASEAN framework especially in takling the conflict management.
II. Main Questions
1. What kinds of problems emerge in the
border areas?
2. How do the two countries manage their
border problems?
Daud Amatzin (2004: 2) notes there are some statements
mentioned below are some common cries describing the degree
of the problem as follows:
“the labor shortage in Malaysia is becoming a serious threat to
the ….development of the nation’s economy (The Planter, Kuala
Lumpur1980).
“the single most pressing issue facing the plantation industry is
shortage of labor (ISIS Conference, Kuala Lumpur, 1992).
•The Malaysia and Philippines border is a maritime boundary located in the South China, Sulu and Celebes Seas. It separates the Malaysian state of Sabah, which is on the island of Borneo, and the Sulu Islands of the southern Philippines. The trade routes between two countries have been developing since a long ago.
•The boundary is the result of the division of the Sulu Sultanate through the cession of its territories to colonial powers. The British gained control of the northeast shores of Borneo, becoming known as North Borneo and subsequently Sabah, while the rest of the Sulu Islands fell under Spanish control and later United States rule.
III. Demography
Sabah, surrounded by small islands and resided by the local people
or ethnic minorities becomes a destination for them to get a better
life. It is noted that ¾ of the population in Sabah depend on
agricultural sectors.
Most of the local people called the Bumi Putra including Dusun,
Bajau, Murut, Rungus and Orang Sungai involve in the economic
agricultural sector which is managed in small scale industry such as
rubber, oil palm plantations, paddy, and fishing.
However, for the big businessmen in the oil palm plantations most
of them come from Tanah Semenanjung Malaysia. Many people
like from Banggi, Kota Marudu come to Sabah to get job in
restaurants, mall or other shops in the Bandar-bandar, like Kudat
and the like.
In certain part of Sabah there some ethnic groups such as the
Dusun, the Bajau, the Bugis etc. The Dusun is the collective
name of a tribe or ethnic and linguistic group in the Malaysian
state of Sabah. Due to similarities in culture and language with
the Kadazan ethnic group, and also because of other political
initiatives, a new unified term called "Kadazan-Dusun" was
created. Collectively, they form largest ethnic group Sabah.
Beside the Filipinos there were many the Chinese, having business activities in Kudat. As already mentioned earlier that as Yap Pak Leong (2004: 35) notes that the first Mindanao workers arrive in North Borneo (as Sabah was then called were the Chinese from Kwangdong, China in about 1882. These were able-bodied Hakka men and women, mostly Christians who were recruited to work in rubber plantations and construction.
By 1949 the Chinese plantation workers formed about 25% of the population of North Borneo. In 1950 immigrants from China was stopped by the British after the communist government was established in China. It is even the Chinese have a unity organization for the “Kaum Muda Kudat” in Kudat city.
•There are some significant influences due its location in the South China Sea and also in the
Pasific region. It is mostly that countries in Southeast Asia are trying to improve the border trade to become the free zone trade as already happened between Malaysia and Singapore such as between Johor Bahru and Woodlands.
•The border trade gives some impacts on the trade and economic development, in which this
situation cause the emergence of illegal trade, illegal movement of people and goods and the like. The unbalanced development between two ore more countries could be one factor on this issue. Though there are some gates or checkpoint in terms of formal gates have been established between Malaysia and the Philippines as we can see in Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan, Tawau and in the Philippines region namely Mindanao, but there are uncertain situation in relation to the improving figures on the illegal movements in the regions.
•Sandakan, for instance is a place for the legal movement for the Filipinos working in the
region of Sabah. This place remains Sabah's second most important port, after Kota Kinabalu.
•
Kota Kinabalu , formerly Jesselton, is the capital of Sabah state in Malaysia.
•The port of Sandakan is important for palm oil. Palm oil is an edible Vegetable fats and oils
derived from the fruit of the Arecaceae Elaeis oil palm. Previously the second-most widely produced edible oil, after soybean oil, 28 million tonnes were produced worldwide in 2004, tobacco
Illegal immigration refers to immigration across national borders in a
way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. In
politics, the term may imply a larger set of social issues and time
constraints with disputed consequences in areas such as economy, social
welfare, education, health care, slavery, prostitution, in the town centre.
In January 2003
The Sandakan Harbour Square, an urban renewal Sandakan project, was
launched in an attempt to revive the town centre as the commercial hub
in Sandakan.
IV. Trade Contacts in the Border Areas
between Malaysia and the Philippines
Kudat- Sabah in particular is proper port-to-port trading is being
eyed to take place between Sabah and Palawan as their respective
key government and private sector players begin joint efforts to
formally
link
two
neighboring
municipalities
that
could
strategically open a vibrant trade between the two BIMP-EAGA
focus areas.
V. THE POLICY ON TRADE CONTACTS IN THE BORDER AREAS BETWEEN MALAYSIA AND THE PHILIPPINES
Amer (2000) notes that Malaysia and the Philippines have to be in agreement on maritime boundaries in the Sulu Sea, Celebes Sea and in the South China Sea proper. In the recent development, they have overlapping claims to parts of the Spratly Archipelago in the South China Sea, which are also claimed by Vietnam. In addition to this, Malaysia and the Philippines have not yet formally settled with the Sabah issue (Amer, 2000: 35). The description of the trade contacts in the border regions between Malaysia and the Philippines is actually similar between the trade border between Malaysia and the Indonesia. It is known that as with other Malaysian states, a policy of active recruiting of migrant labor to Sabah commenced in the 1970s to ease the labor shortage (Anne-Marie Hilsdon, 2008: 2).
Statistik Kelulusan Pas Lawatan Kerja Sementara, 2004: 71
Citizenship Indonesia Indonesia Filipino Filipino Total Total
Sektor Kategori
P/Baru P/Lama P/Baru P/Lama P/ Baru P/ Lama
Pembantu rumah
261 512 11 36 271 548
Perkilangan 342 977 30 36 373 1012
Perladangan 2725 4377 155 202 2880 4579
Pembinaan 92 74 30 40 122 114
Perkhidmata n
96 234 79 89 178 323
Lain-lain 0 0 0 0 0 0
According to the Indonesian Report in June 2007, there were about
207,186 foreigners from Indonesia work in Sabah. Almost ¾ of them
work in the oil palm plantations. It is caused that the local people called
“
penduduk tempatan
” are not interested in working in the palm oil
plantations. They perceive that working in the plantation is hard work
and limited salary.
The location of the palm oil plantations, are far in the interior as well as
the palm oil estates in Lahat Datu, Kinabatangan and Tongud.
The job opportunities in the palm oil plantations in Sabah give not
economic benefit to the local people in Sabah.
More than 90% of the agricultural areas in Sabah in 2005 were utilized
for the oil palm plantations. It was only 6.5% of the areas that had been
planted for palm oil in 2005 were managed by the small scale
businessmen or local businessmen, and the rest it was about 93.5% were
dominated by the big capitals.
Poverty in %
Poverty in %
Sabah 23.0
Bumiputra 29.4
Murut 35.4
Bajau 33.3
Kadazan/ Dusun 26.2
Melayu 18.9
Bumiputra lain Etnik
Lain-lain 5.8
Cina 2.6
VI. SOME PERSPECTIVE ON THE TRADE CONTACTS BETWEEN MALAYSIA AND THE PHILIPPINES:
A LESSON LEARNT FOR INDONESIA
Shepard (1998) that what it means the development in the
border area is:
“satu set aktiviti dan tindakan bersama pelbagai
pihak-individu, organisasi dan kumpulan-ke arah kemajuan di
kawasan
luar
Bandar. Kemajuan
yang
dimaksudkan
biasanya dikaitkan dengan nilai material seperti kadar
pertumbuhan dalam pendapatan dan kekayaan, dan tingkat
kejayaan
dalam
usaha
membasmikan
kemiskinan.
Sungguhpun
begitu,
pada
dekad
kebelakangan
ini,
Job Distribution of Foreign Workers by Economic Sector in Sabah (2001-2003)
Nationalities Number 2000 % 2000 Number 2002 % 2002 Number 2003 % 2003 Domestic Maids
5.200 5.05 8.960 6.14 10.479 6.44
Manufacturi ng
11.408 11.09 11.608 7.95 14.886 9.14
Plantation 80.414 78.17 115.819 79.34 129.840 79.76
Constructio n
1.591 1.55 3.607 2.47 2.820 1.73
Services 4.126 4.01 5.946 4.07 4.586 2.82
Others 133 0.13 40 0.03 178 0.11
In the past history of the Philippines was under the
Spain
colonization
and
the
American
modern
imperialism, which had affected the Filipinos to be good
at English language.
This requisition becomes a capital to get chances as
workers in Malaysia, in which Malaysia was also under
the British influences and the language that has been
used is English. It is even assumed that the English
language is much used by the people in Sarawak and
Sabah rather than in Tanah Semenanjung, in which the
VII. Conclusion
Border communities organize themselves not only within the confines of national boundaries but also around social ties and interactions that cross these boundaries. This is particularly true of the study area where the national border was drawn in a way that ignored the natural and social divisions recognized by local people and which, today, remains porous to movements of people and goods. However, notwithstanding the artificial nature of this border, it is now necessary for borderland communities to organize their lives around it. The border has thus become an arena where diverse interests and actors play out their roles (Koji 2003:1). Moreover, national citizenship is now one of the identities, in addition to kinship and culture, that must be negotiated (Bala 2002:114).
MAINLAND OF SOUTHEAST ASIA: 1. “Border bonanza”,
2. “Golden quadrangle” , 3. “Asia’s “growth circle”,
4. Transboundary transportation networks 5. and “Corridors of Growth”
ISLANDS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA 1. Border trade
The border areas which are located in between Malaysia and the Philippines are arranged in terms of border trade and not in terms of free trade zone. The movement of people and goods: Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan, Semporna, Lahat Datu, Tawau, Kota Marudu,Kunakor other bandar like Kudat which is as the nearest border gate between Malaysia and the Philippines. Both of the communities in the border region like the Filipinos, particularly the Bajau community in Mengkabong and at Pulau Banggi.
They trade one to each other in terms of traditional trade or some times barter trade. This has occurred since both of the people between Malaysia and the Filipinos have the same ethnic groups as the Bajau, in which some of them live side by side in Malaysia and the Philippines.
Thanks to SEASREP
Borders of Kinship and Ethnicity: Cross-border Relations
between the Kelalan Valley, Sarawak, and the Bawan Valley,
East Kalimantan.
Research Funded by SEASREP Japan, Published
in
Borneo
Research Bulletin
(2004) vol. 35, pp.144--179.
Thanks to LI
PI
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