Ethnicity and Philippine-Malaysian Relations

Abstract

THE NORMALIZATION OF RELATIONS between the Philippines and Malaysia in December 1969 made possible the development of ASEAN-the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-into a regional organization characterized by increasing cooperation. Yet the normalization coincided with the development of growing insurgency in Muslim areas of the southern Philippines, an insurgency allegedly encouraged by Tun Mustapha, Chief Minister of the Malaysian state of Sabah. The purpose of this article is to discuss these two developments, the continuing cooperation of Malaysia and the Philippines in ASEAN and the emergence of a secessionist movement among the Philippine minority who share common religious bonds with the Malaysian majority. The argument is that these two developments are related in such a way as to reflect a bargain, implicit or explicit, between the policy-makers of the two states. The policy-makers act as if they have agreed that Malaysia will refrain from supporting Philippine Muslims but will not stop Tun Mustapha's assistance to them; the Philippines will continue to attack the Muslim separatist movement but will refrain from action against Sabah or from direct public criticism of Malaysia; the Philippines will not press its claim to Sabah but will assert its right to the waters around the Sulu archipelago. Succeeding sections of the paper explain how this bargain was arrived at, how it has worked, and what conclusions it suggests about the relationships between ethnicity and Philippine-Malaysian relations and, more generally, between ethnicity and international relations theory.