MANILA - Philippine Foreign Secretary Blas Ople criticized politicians for stirring up calls to revive Manila's claim to Sabah state after Malaysia deported thousands of illegal Filipino migrants.

"The emotional passions generated by the mass deportation crisis from Sabah, which some politicians are exacerbating to their own interest, are again bringing to the fore the latent issues on Sabah," he wrote in the Manila Bulletin on Sunday.

"I personally believe that there is no substitute for patient diplomacy to resolve these issues and that irrational passions on both sides of the Sulu Sea should be held in check."

Manila has a longstanding claim on the resources-rich eastern Malaysian state, which it says was part of the Islamic sultanate of Sulu in the southern Philippines before Malaysia obtained independence.