Leigh R. Wright in the journal article “Historical Notes on the North Borneo Dispute” published in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 24, No 3 (May, 1966) made some rather interesting and salient points to the discussion. She notes that while the Sulu claim of sovereignty over North Borneo prior to the 1878 treaty with Baron Overbeck is open to dispute“The Philippine government has not produced, and it is doubtful if there is extant, a document by which Brunei granted North Borneo to Sulu. It is only the weight of Sulu tradition which sustains the Sulu claim to ownership of the area.” (Leigh R. Wright, ibid.), there is ample oral and written documentation which proves that Brunei held sway over North Borneo before it was even ceded to the British North Borneo Company. In fact, after the signing of treaties, “[f]ew people seriously questioned the British North Borneo Company’s rights of sovereignty until the Philippines pressed their claim in 1962. Most observers of the last and present century refer to the cession as complete.”Leigh R. Wright, ibid. In any case, she says, the effect of the Madrid Protocol of 1885 signed by Spain and Britain effectively demonstrates that Spain as the colonial power of the Philippines Islands had abandoned all claims that it may have over North Borneo.The British and Malaysian view…is that the Republic of the Philippines is the successor to the United States and Spain in the Philippine Islands. As Spain abandoned her claim to North Borneo in the protocol of 1885, and as a line of demarcation was agreed to by the United States and Britain in 1930, the Philippines could not possibly sustain a claim of sovereignty over North Borneo.” (ibid.) Continue reading →