SolGen studying implications of award in favor of Sulu sultan’s heirs

The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) is “carefully” studying the legal and constitutional implications of any award in favor of the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu, Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra said on Tuesday.

“The OSG, on its own, is carefully studying the legal and constitutional implications, if any, of the arbitral award in favor of the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu,” Guevarra said when asked if the Philippines would have any role in the case before the French arbitration court.

The heirs of the 19th century sultanate are seeking to seize Malaysian government assets around the world in a bid to enforce a $14.9 billion arbitration award they won against the Southeast Asian nation.

A stay on the case had handed down by a French arbitration court.

The tribunal in February ordered Malaysia to pay the sum to the descendants of the last Sultan of Sulu to settle a dispute over a colonial-era land deal.

Malaysia, meanwhile, said the Paris Court of Appeals had stayed the ruling, after finding that enforcement of the award could infringe the country's sovereignty.

The heirs claim to be successors-in-interest to the last Sultan of Sulu, who entered a deal in 1878 with a British trading company for the exploitation of resources in territory under his control — including what is now the oil-rich Malaysian state of Sabah, on the northern tip of Borneo.

Malaysia took over the arrangement after independence from Britain, annually paying a token sum to the heirs, who are Philippine nationals.

But the payments were stopped in 2013, with Malaysia arguing that no one else had a right over Sabah, which was part of its territory.

Sought for comment as regards the award, Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles said the Marcos administration still had no concrete "articulation" regarding the matter.

Cruz-Angeles said for now, the matter was "not an issue of sovereignty."

"From what I understand, the case is in the nature of a private claim by the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu with Malaysia. Therefore it is not an issue of sovereignty or of territory at the moment," Cruz-Angeles said when asked about President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos' position on the issue.

"However, the President’s articulation of his statement about not giving up a square inch of territory will have to be reduced into writing and into specifics after which we will announce these to you if they are in anyway related to the Sabah claim. At the moment, wala pa pong articulation so we have to wait," she added. —with Anna Felicia Bajo/NB, GMA News