FEATURE Engineering professor Rosalam Sarbatly, 45, breaks into chuckles when asked what he thinks of the royal commission of inquiry's (RCI) conclusion that the mass issuance of ICs in Sabah was motivated by money and not politics.

“It’s true that it later became money-motivated, but the initial (reason for issuance of citizenships) was political,” Rasalam ( left ) says once he regains his composure, when met at a restaurant in downtown Kota Kinabalu yesterday.

Though careful with his words, the academic who teaches at a public university still holds that “political turbulence in Sabah presented an opportunity for others to help” in the form of a citizenship-for-votes scheme.

“The RCI was to fulfil the needs of some, but it means nothing much to me.

"It was for the public to know, but the report is not a legally binding document.

“The next step should be to bring people to court (for illegally issuing ICs) but are they (the government) willing to do that?” he asks Malaysiakini 's journalist, who spoke to Kota Kinabalu residents about their reactions to the RCI report.

'RCI a good laugh'

Elsewhere in Kota Kinabalu, Madam Wong says she had a good laugh when she read the newspapers the morning after the Royal Commission Inquiry on Immigrants in Sabah report was made public.

“How can they expect us to believe this? Everyone knows (the truth)!” says the 50-year-old entrepreneur as she recounted her morning to Malaysiakini at her corner shop in a dimly-lit mall in the Sabah capital.

Standing in between detoxification machines in the city centre outlet, Wong, who declined to give her full name for fear of drawbacks to her business, points to Sabah’s neighbour to prove her point.

“If it is just for money, then why didn’t it happen in Sarawak? It is because (long-serving chief minister and now governor) Abdul Taib Mahmud is like this,” she says, showing her thumbs up.

“But here, they were like this,” her thumb now pointing down, “And they didn’t want to lose power.”

While the report stated that the citizenship-for-votes scheme ‘Project IC’ “more likely than not” happened, the RCI surmised that more conclusive evidence suggests that the illegal mass issuance of IC’s was done by syndicates out for profit.

This does little to sway Wong’s long-held belief, and in the court of public opinion, she is winning.

“You’re right. I have known of this since the days of Usno (United Sabah National Organisation) in the 1970s,” her customer, a man soaking his feet in a detox machine, chimes in.

'Not votes, but population booster'

In the neighbouring shopping mall, Mahathir Hamid, 28, tells Malaysiakini that his family was among those who had benefitted from the issuance of ICs.

The 28-year-old’s grandfather fled the violence in southern Philippines with his family in the 1970s, and died in Sabah as a Malaysian.

“I have this childhood memory of my grandfather, the ketua kampung , taking government officers door-to-door, and people filling up forms to get ICs, but as I recall, they were never told to vote for any particular party,” he says.

But even Mahathir, named by his grandfather after Malaysia’s fourth prime minister, does not believe the RCI’s conclusion.

“It’s not true to say that the ICs were issued for money. Many didn’t even pay money and were forced to take it.

"It was done to grow the population on the east coast, which was sparse then,” he says.

S ome of Mahathir’s ( right ) family opted to take the ICs offered and their heirs are now recognised as bumiputera, but some declined, thinking they would return to the Philippines.

“My grandparents told me they had to use the help of an interpreter as they couldn’t speak Bahasa Malaysia at that time.

“They told me all this because they wanted me to always remember to be humble and that we are also pendatang (immigrants).”

Mahathir’s mother was one of those who had refused the IC offer and as a result, her son, the Sabah-born sales assistant, only holds a permanent residency.

“I just can’t vote or join a political party, but I’m not fussed about politics. I just care about making a living and feeding my family,” says the father of one, his child a Malaysian.

'Life not easy for foreigners'

Behind the cash register in a sundry shop a kilometre away, a woman’s eyes wells up when she speaks to Malaysiakini about the RCI report.

“They make it seem like it is so easy for foreigners to get papers. Maybe you can pay to get fake ICs but no, not real ones,” the woman, who declined to be identified, says.

The 40-year-old has been in the country for 25 years but every year she has to renew her visitor’s pass and work permit, which costs about RM500.

Showing her passport, the Filipino says her eldest children who are now Malaysian became her local sponsors for her visitor’s pass the moment they turned 18, while her employer pays for the work permit.

Separated from her Malaysian husband, she says she had to go up and down courts to make sure her marriage certificate is deemed legitimate to make sure her five children were issued ICs.

One of her children missed several months of school because his IC was not yet issued at the time, she recounts.

Schools had started enforcing strict regulations barring foreigners from attending public schools.

“I went to Indonesia recently and at the Malaysian immigration check point, the officer was shocked to find that I have not been awarded citizenship. Imagine that.

“(The RCI report) is just perception,” she says, wiping away tears streaming down her cheeks.

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