Disclaimer: I write historical fiction. I am not a historian. What you read here are products of years of playing around with historical fact to create stories.
We all know that some time in the late 60s, Marcos planned to invade Sabah by training commandos who would slip into Sabah, sow chaos, and ultimately lobby politically to break the claimed territory out of Malaysia and into Philippine custody. And we all know that during the training, the commandos mutinied and were culled in what would be known as the Jabidah Massacre, with only one survivor escaping the prison island of corregidor and living to tell the tale. The account was then made public by the then-opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. in the Philippine Senate, which then concentrated the dissenting clans of Mindanao into full-on rebellion that lasted for almost 40 years with the succession of the MNLF, MILF, and the more recent BIFF. We also know that Malaysia, in seeking to prevent another attempt by the Philippines to plan out another retake of Sabah, secretly helped the MNLF with their struggle by providing Libyan arms and funding in the Philippine backdoor. And finally, we know that first quarter of 2013, the Sultan's Royal Army, with the backing of MNLF, finally went to Sabah.
Those are the things that we do know.
But there are still some things that never really got clarified.
Most of what the public knows of Operation Merdeka came from Benigno Aquino Jr. who, the Bangkok Post cautioned at the time as, at the baseline, a politician with great rhetorical skill, and may have formatted the information in such a way that it would stir up greater emotions among the populace and the spotty Senate hearing that led to nothing but dead ends.
We all know that some time in the late 60s, Marcos planned to invade Sabah by training commandos who would slip into Sabah, sow chaos, and ultimately lobby politically to break the claimed territory out of Malaysia and into Philippine custody. And we all know that during the training, the commandos mutinied and were culled in what would be known as the Jabidah Massacre, with only one survivor escaping the prison island of corregidor and living to tell the tale. The account was then made public by the then-opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. in the Philippine Senate, which then concentrated the dissenting clans of Mindanao into full-on rebellion that lasted for almost 40 years with the succession of the MNLF, MILF, and the more recent BIFF. We also know that Malaysia, in seeking to prevent another attempt by the Philippines to plan out another retake of Sabah, secretly helped the MNLF with their struggle by providing Libyan arms and funding in the Philippine backdoor. And finally, we know that first quarter of 2013, the Sultan's Royal Army, with the backing of MNLF, finally went to Sabah.
Those are the things that we do know.
But there are still some things that never really got clarified.
Most of what the public knows of Operation Merdeka came from Benigno Aquino Jr. who, the Bangkok Post cautioned at the time as, at the baseline, a politician with great rhetorical skill, and may have formatted the information in such a way that it would stir up greater emotions among the populace and the spotty Senate hearing that led to nothing but dead ends.
