I read with interest the accusation by Dr Koh Tsu Koon on the role played by Anwar Ibrahim in showing concern for Amin Shah Omar Shah on payments that resulted in a time relief to the debtor.

Apparently there seems to be some lapse on the follow-up to the recovery of repayments by the Penang authorities for which attempt is being made to blame Anwar. Anwar being a Penangite, I expect him to be concerned for a Penangite in trouble. It is just giving some attention to a countryman in time of trouble.

My experience with Anwar, though I neither belong to any political party, is that he is a man of compassion and was there for the needy and especially the poor. It is clearly reflected in public records of his very loud cries calling for more low-cost housing to bring homes to the poor when he was in power. I admired him tremendously on this passion of his.

But let me go a little further. In 1992 Cuepacs, of which I was then the secretary-general, was faced with a foreclosure of its Wisma Ceupacs and all its properties because of a high borrowing rate of interest done with the Workers Bank for a development project more than 10 years ago despite having since paid all the capital twice over.

The workers had lost ownership of the bank and its then general manager, now a transformed social activist, was an inconsiderate debt collector who showed no compassion and would see us go to hell than to redeem our situation without consideration of the heavy repayments we had made. We had no one to turn to and we went to see Anwar who then also the finance minister.

On his willingness to save us, we went back to the bank on his assurance. Just as we met this general manager, he had just received Anwar’s appeal for a similar case involving the Transport Workers Union, which just got a great help. We also got a concession of 50% of the RM550,000 claimed from which itself was the last concession.

We were grateful to Anwar for his human face and went on to borrow the rest from eight affiliated unions and got out of the trouble. We came out clean and informed Anwar of the same. He took our case further and found the support for that we had borrowed and helped redeem us in full.

He never sought anything then or after from the organisation or anyone of us. In fact there are only more cases to refer on how he continued to show similar compassion for individuals and organisations in the workers group and amazingly even to those who had condemned him for no pay back.

From Cuepacs, we were not beggars and did not want to idolise anyone. Nonetheless, we were all very appreciative of the timely compassionate action of Anwar. I for one will not forget the type of man he is made of. He is a man of genuine compassion and if it his destiny is to be prime minister, Malaysians would inherit a people’s leader to be there for them.

Good luck Anwar! Your deeds will never be forgotten. May God the Merciful give special blessings to the compassionate.