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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
ZAMBOANGA CITY: More than 300 Filipinos arrested
in Sabah have arrived here, as Malaysia continued its crackdown on
undocumented workers in the oil-rich state.
The deportees arrived by boat late Saturday
afternoon from Sandakan City. They were herded onto trucks and
brought to a government refugee shelter. The deportees, mostly from
Sulu, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi provinces, all in the Muslim autonomous
region, are to be sent to their home provinces after social workers
gather information about them.
Malaysia has deported thousands of illegal
Filipino workers since early this year. Sabah Chief Minister Datuk
Seri Musa Hajji Aman has repeatedly appealed to Manila to speed up
the repatriation of many illegal Filipino workers detained in jails,
but so far nothing had been done to bring them back.
Tens of thousands of illegal Filipinos have been
arrested in Sabah over the past years. Many of them had illegally
crossed to Sabah by boat from Tawi-Tawi to work at construction
sites.
Philippine authorities appeared to be helpless
in putting a stop to the illegal border crossing. Many boat
operators in Tawi-Tawi continue to sneak into Sabah, bringing dozens
of Filipinos to find work there. Worse, some Malaysian policemen in
Semporna and Tawau towns intercept Filipino outriggers to collect
bribes from boat operators and passengers in exchange for safe
passage, according to Abdullah, a Muslim deportee.
Operators of boats called “temper of kumpit”
usually charge between P2,000 to P3,000 for each Filipino passenger
illegally entering Sabah, many of them were without travel
documents, but had relatives who are also illegally working on the
island.
Many Filipinos also go to Sabah, just 27
nautical miles from Tawi-Tawi’s Sitangkai town, as tourists but
never return back—only to be arrested later by immigration
authorities. “Life is really difficult in Sabah, but it is harder
in the Philippines because there is no job for me, for us Muslim. In
Sabah, there is always an opportunity to find a job in palm [oil]
plantations or in constructions sites,” Abdullah said.
Malaysia began a crackdown on up to 500,000
illegal foreign workers since 2005 and police and immigration
authorities and volunteer squads have been conducting searches that
extended from construction sites in Kuala Lumpur to palm oil
plantations in Sabah.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila
reported that as many as 300 illegal Filipinos are being deported
from Malaysia every week. Since January this year, more than 7,000
illegal Filipinos had been deported to the Philippines.
Kuala Lumpur had previously given amnesty that
allowed illegal immigrants to leave the country with a promise they
could return as legal workers once they received proper documents.
The government’s tough action has enjoyed popular support in
Malaysia, where illegal workers, who had numbered more than a
million in a country of 24 million people, have been blamed for
crime and other social problems.
Malaysia said the illegal workers do not pay tax
and put a heavy burden on state services, such as education and
health care, increasing pressure on an already high budget deficit.
Some Filipino deportees said they were herded
into overcrowded detention camps before being expelled and others
reported tales of abuses inside Malaysian jails.
Filipino lawmaker Luzviminda Ilagan said many of
those deported to Zamboanga City had suffered inhumane treatment in
Malaysian jails. She urged Manila to look into the poor condition of
Filipinos languishing in jails in Malaysia and to take immediate
steps to help them. “There were complaints from the deported
Filipinos that they were held in poorly maintained jails, not given
enough food, and not provided proper health care,” she said.
Filipino Muslims who were deported said they had
been forced to work illegally in Sabah because the Philippine
government and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao failed to
provide them livelihood opportunities at home.
Many also decried the discrimination in
Zamboanga City, where Christian employers flatly reject Muslim job
seekers for fear they might be criminals or are related to members
of the Abu Sayyaf or to rebel groups. The discrimination, they said,
was heightened after the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the United States.
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