Suhakam faults Manila for Filipino woes in Sabah

The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) has discovered that slow documentation of Filipino illegal immigrants by the Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur may be behind complaints by Manila of bad treatment of their nationals by Malaysian authorities.

The commission came to this conclusion after a four-man probe of the temporary illegal immigrants detention centre in Kota Belud concluded over the weekend and Monday, according to Suhakam vice-president from Sabah Simon Sipaun, a former Sabah state secretary, who also noted that there are perhaps no similar complaints from other countries whose nationals are being held at the detention centres in the state.

"It was like searching for a needle in a haystack," said Sipaun. "There was no evidence of ill treatment of illegal immigrants at the detention centres."

Sipaun added that unless there was a complaint of a specific nature, "it was difficult to verify them."

"What we had was a general complaint of bad treatment by Malaysian authorities of Filipino nationals while in detention in Sabah," said Sipaun. "We found no signs of any official and deliberate attempt to violate the human rights of detainees in Sabah."

"We propose that the Philippines Embassy in Kuala Lumpur set up a Consulate in Sabah to speed up the documentation of their nationals detained in Sabah for illegal entry and overstaying. The grouses of Filipino deportees might be due to the slow process of obtaining Filipino travel documents."

Indonesia, another major source of the illegals in Sabah, has Consulates in Kota Kinabalu and Tawau which facilitate the speedy deportation of their nationals detained in Sabah for illegal entry and overstaying, it was noted.

Territorial claims

However, the Philippines has long baulked at the idea of setting up a Consulate in Sabah because of its longstanding territorial claim to the eastern and northern third of the state “after the transfer of suzerainty from the Sultanate of Sulu to the republic of the Philippines.”

The territorial claim drives a belief that Filipino illegal immigrants in Sabah are actually not illegals and “have every right to be there” and if they are deported, “there’s no reason why Manila should hurry up the deportation process.”

Deportation is a process which also requires the consent of the receiving country of the deportee. It is known that the Philippines will not accept back its nationals unless it can be proven conclusively that they are, or still are, citizens of the Republic of the Philippines. This can be a difficult and time-consuming process if the illegals have been away from the Philippines, with or without documents for more than 10 years and are therefore deemed to be stateless. It is not known how many "stateless" Philippine citizens are languishing at the detention centres in Sabah.

Suhakam undertook the probe of the detention centres at the request of the Philippines Human Rights Commission which had "received numerous complaints from Filipinos that they were even severely beaten in detention centres prior to their deportation in the ongoing large-scale offensive – Ops Bersepadu - against illegals in Sabah."

The Philippines Commission was also acting at the behest of the Philippines House of Representatives Fact Finding Committee on Sabah Deportees. A member of the Committee, Luzviminda Ilagan, was quoted by AFP in Zamboanga, Philippines, as saying in recent days that "Filipino detainees and those already deported to the Philippines have experienced severe beatings from Malaysian police while under detention."

She also claimed that thousands of Filipinos including women and children, remained in Malaysian detention centres "and suffering from inhumane conditions". Ilagan is pushing for a House-level inquiry into the alleged abuses by Malaysian authorities and also “aid from the Philippines Government to ensure the deportees would not return as illegals to Sabah.”

Sabah does not have the holding facilities at its detention centres in Menggatal in Kota Kinabalu, Kota Belud, Sandakan and Tawau to take in too many detainees at any one time, there have been complaints that the prisons are overcrowded and lock-ups at police stations can’t be limited to the illegals only. Apparently, the detention centres are inspected on a regular basis by Philippine Embassy officials from Kuala Lumpur and officials from the Indonesian Consulates in Kota Kinabalu and Tawau.

Ops Bersepadu, which began on Aug 7, has so far netted more than 1,000 illegals, according to the Office of the State Secretary Sukarti Wakiman. Sabah has also offered a three-month amnesty period to employers of illegals to regularise their workers. However, it is not known how many illegals have been regularised so far in this manner since Aug 1.

Official figures

Some official figures cited by the State Secretary's Office:

(1) Menggatal and Kota Belud are at resent holding 2,057 detainees including 1,223 in Menggatal who were not held under Ops Bersepadu; and

(2) A total of 1, 205 Filipinos have been deported so far, 634 Indonesians 634 and 8 Pakistanis, not all netted under Ops Bersepadu;

Precise figures for Sandakan and Tawau could not be immediately obtained but these are not expected to be more than the figures at Menggatal and Kota Belud. Sandakan is the processing centre for Filipino deportees while Tawau handles Indonesian deportees. Other nationals are deported from Kota Kinabalu.

All these figures are a mere drop in the ocean.

The Philippines government itself estimates conservatively that 200,000 Filipinos are living and working in Malaysia without valid visas and nearly 3,000 are in jail waiting to be deported, according to the AFP report.

It is not known what the figures are for illegals from other countries but it has been estimated that Indonesians without documents in Sabah may be as large as that from the Philippines or even more. Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Timor Leste and to a lesser extent, India, are among countries which are the source of the illegal immigrant problem in the state.