Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said both countries belong to the Asean community and are regional partners on multiple levels.

“It’s not so simple to do away with our diplomatic relations,” he said during a Home Ministry’s National Key Target Areas Seminar here.

Instead, Zahid said, Malaysia should strengthen its collaboration and cooperation with Manila.
“We need them, they also need us. That should be the spirit.”

Zahid, who is also the home minister, was responding to a suggestion by Barisan Nasional’s Kalabakan MP Abdul Ghapur Salleh that the government cut diplomatic ties with the Philippines over the constant threat posed by the militants, which has left Sabahans living in fear.

Earlier this month, four Sarawakian crewmen on a Malaysian cargo ship were kidnapped in a raid by armed Filipino gunmen off Pulau Ligitan, eastern Sabah.