PARLIAMENT Klang MP Charles Santiago has been ejected from the Dewan Rakyat today after he questioned Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia's decision not to allow his emergency motion on dengue to be debated.

Santiago said the decision "makes no sense" ( tak masuk akal ), causing Pandikar to demand the DAP parliamentarian to retract the phrase and apologise.

However, the lawmaker continued to argue his case until he was ordered to leave.

"Referring to Standing Order 18(1), when the speaker has made a decision in chambers, it cannot be raised again in the sitting for the speaker to review. That is in the Standing Orders, clear.

"When an MP stands up for that reason, that means he is going against the decision. He is asking me to review something that I could not review. What does it show?

"Either he is disrupting the sitting, does not understand the Standing Orders, or iscdisregarding the speaker’s decision," said Pandikar after Santiago left.

Dengue is an ongoing problem

Pandikar explained that the dengue issue is an ongoing problem with efforts being made to tackle it, and an emergency motion would do nothing to help the issue.

Therefore, he said the motion does not fit the criteria for an emergency motion under Standing Order 18(1).

The order stipulates that a non-minister MP can ask the house to debate a matter of “urgent public importance” by reading a text or motion approved by the speaker.

The exchange took place just after this morning's question and answer session concluded and debates for the day on bills tabled by the government were about to commence.

At a press conference at the parliament lobby, however, Charles said Parliament has disappointed Malaysian families.

Since January this year, he said there had been there had been 50,000 cases of dengue and 144 dengue-related deaths, despite large-scale operations to contain it.

In comparison, Santiago said in the whole of last year, there were only 36,825 cases of dengue causing 76 deaths.

“This is the second time I have brought this up. It was rejected for the same reason, but more people (have) died,” he lamented.