I am becoming increasingly ashamed and troubled as I follow the story on the alleged rape of a 13-year-old child — seeing how the core issue, rape, is being undermined by the government's focus on the child's nationality and even more intriguingly, her character.

The blunders are as follows:

  • A child is arrested and deported without her nationality being established, only to find that we have deported one of our own.

  • A child was placed in a unprotected condition, allowing her to be allegedly raped by seven beasts (for men do not do such things).

  • The seven beastly men have not been brought to justice yet as the police have been busy determining the nationality of the child.

  • The Foreign Minister has shown his lack of humanity, capacity for thinking, common sense and diplomacy.

  • The Prime Minister's opinion is utterly shocking — more so as he should, by now, be a wise elder for the nation given his age, experience and the fact that he has grandchildren of similar age.

    • The Umno parrots defending their bosses in parliament are unfit to speak by continuing this shameful process of upholding injustice.

    The Barisan Nasional member of parliaments, especially the women, who kept their silence should have this on their conscience for a very long time due to their lack of courage. What shameless and emotionless women they have become for not defending their own kind! Has their maternal instinct disappeared — subjugated by their material needs?

    When a government abandons one of its children — and so blatantly at that — what evidence can we offer to the world that we hail from a civil society? Shame on Malaysia for failing a child of their own. We stand humbled and shamed in the eyes of the Filipinos and the rest of the world.