The mayor of Kalayaan town in Palawan, along with around 200 people, were harassed by two unidentified vessels while they were traveling by sea before midnight Thursday, the local official said.
Sultan of Brunei Haji Hassanal Bolkiah flew in Monday for a brief 24-hour-long state visit to the Philippines ahead of next week’s 22nd summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Brunei.
Making his first state visit to the Philippines under the Aquino administration, the Sultan of Brunei will be in Manila next week in a visit seen to boost long-standing ties between the two countries.
The Philippines has asserted its right to have access to Philippine citizens being held by Malaysian authorities in Sabah as government had no confirmed information of their location and condition, relying only on Malaysian news reports on the arrests.
Eight Filipinos, seven of them forced to wear straightjackets, remained silent and entered no plea when they were arraigned in a court in Sabah on charges of terrorism and rebellion, two Malaysian radio stations reported Thursday.
The Philippine government will provide lawyers to the eight Filipinos charged with terrorism on Wednesday in Lahad Datu, Sabah in Malaysia.
Fearing further alleged abuses that might be committed by Malaysian authorities against evacuees from Sabah, a daughter of the Sultan of Sulu Jamalul Kiram III has asked the help of the Public Attorney’s Office to assist Filipinos who were prevented from leaving.
The head of the new contingent of Malaysian peace monitors in Mindanao is confident that the Sabah conflict will not affect peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, saying the talks and the standoff were unrelated.
She fears for her life and that of her family here in Sabah. But if she goes back to Tawi-Tawi, they will have nothing, too—not a house, not a job, perhaps not a future.
Independent Malaysian online news provider Malaysiakini has claimed that Malaysian journalists covering the Sabah crisis in Lahad Datu were ordered by the Sabah minister on Monday to always refer to the armed followers of the sultan of Sulu as “terrorists.”
The bodies of another 22 Sulu gunmen had been hauled to hospitals in Tawau and Lahad Datu after these were stumbled upon by Malaysian security forces in three areas of Semporna and Lahad Datu, Sabah Police Commissioner Hamza Taib said Monday during an interview with a Sabah-based radio station.
More than 400 individuals from Sabah have been stranded on Taganak Island (Turtle Island) in Tawi-Tawi province since Saturday night, waiting to be rescued by the government, a Philippine Navy official said on Sunday.
