Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang today expressed disgust at Barisan Nasional MPs who rejoiced when his emergency motion to debate Malaysia's lowly placement in the US Trafficking In Person Report was rejected yesterday.

"I regret when they (MPs) thumped the tables to express their pleasure," he told a press conference in the Parliament lobby today.

"They seem to be happy with the situation in Malaysia," he said, adding that it was a "critical issue".

Lim said that during the parliamentary debate on the Anti-Human Trafficking Law in May, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nazri Aziz has pointed out that Malaysia has been placed in Tier 2 of the report.

"But he never condemned the US for placing us in Tier 2 watch list in the report, which was released in June last year," he added.

Furthermore, Lim explained, the US state department also issued an Interim Assessment in January, which provided guidelines that advises all governments including Malaysia to avoid from falling into Tier 3.

"There was a guideline. Why wasn't the guideline followed? It could have prevented us from ending up in Tier 3," he added.

Lim explained that although the government was not answerable to the US, it was still answerable to the people in the country.

"That is why we need the debate," he stressed, adding that such low placement was shocking and a black mark to the country.

The bocor issue

Lim also stated his dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's response on the 'bocor' issue yesterday.

"It is no use for the government to express regret for the episode when the two MPs (Mohd Said Yusof and Bung Mokhtar Radin) are openly defiant and unrepentant as evident from their fake apologies," he said.

"For the Cabinet to maintain that the fake apologies are adequate and that the parliamentary scandal of the sexist and gender offensive episode is closed is a contempt of Parliament," he added.

"Cabinet ministers seem to have forgotten that Parliament is under our Constitution and the system of government is higher than the Cabinet, and not the other way around."

Lim urged the matter to be settled in Parliament with proper remedy and not in Cabinet or Barisan Nasional.