Filipino Illegals in Sabah: Diplomatic Bargaining Chips

Written on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 8:26 am | by Ding G. Gagelonia

Crackdown On Filipino TNTs in Sabah

The real reason for the intensified expulsion of undocumented Filipinos (TNT’s or Tago-Ng-Tago) in the disputed territory of Sabah, which has been under formal Malaysia control since 1963, has finally been admitted in a tangential way by Malacanang.

A report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer quotes presidential alter ego or ‘little president’ Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita as saying, “you can’t disregard the Sabah issue, but we can’t connect all these issues at once. Otherwise the goodwill that we have with the other country will be lost.”

Mr. Ermita made the remark in the context of the latest round of talks between Manila and Kuala Lumpur (actually the 5th RP-Malaysia Working Group on Migrant Workers held against the backdrop of the expulsion of the latest batch of Filipinos from Sabah.

Ermita was careful to say that the dialogue was held “under an atmosphere of common understanding of the need to solve an immediate problem.”

So here, the Philippine official has let the cat out of the bag: the current concern is the manner the Filipino TNTs are being expelled, most after being jailed for months on end.

By that remark, Ermita reveals that Manila is maintaining its policy of putting the Sabah claim of the Philippines in the back-burner, while Malaysia is using the deportations to nudge the Philippines to take action.

This is all too apparent given the conflict reports last week about the heirs of Sultan Jamalul Kiram The First allegedly relinquishing their claim to the territory and denials from other members of the sultanate.

What cannot be denied is that Malaysia has through the year continue to pay the sultanate ‘rent’ on the ‘perpetual lease’ which, as far as the claimants are concerned, has long expired.

So what has really emerged is that the Filipino illegals in Sabah variously estimated at a low of 200,000 to a high of 400,000 or 500,00 are the diplomatic bargaining chips in the long drawn out territorial dispute.

As for the expelled Filipinos, many of them originally from Sulu, they simply will ‘cool their heels’ and venture back to Sabah because “there are no jobs in our home towns, our families no longer want us and while we are discriminated against and even jailed in Sabah we will risk going back because here you cannot eat shame.”

Indeed this human drama will continue with the Philippine government not really willing, much less able, to face the issue squarely.

Both the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives have frozen action of the new Baselines Law. Apparently, low on their list of priorities is the reintegration of our compatriots in Sabah.

If this is not deplorable, and tragic, nothing else is:Filipinos abandoned by their own government and society

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About The Author: Ding G. Gagelonia is a journalist of some 30 years, having worked in both radio and TV news and public affairs since his teens. Ding Gagelonia now writes independently and does corporate communications consulting. He has two kids, Felice and Luis. His journalist blog is at midfield.wordpress.com

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Comments

14 Responses to “Filipino Illegals in Sabah: Diplomatic Bargaining Chips”

  1. benign0 on July 24th, 2008 10:07 am

    For me it’s quite simple though.

    If you are consciously doing something illegal (such as living and working in a place illegally), then is it really your place to demand rights within some kind of legal framework?

    I may be missing something here, but the illegality of the presence of these Pinoy nationals in Sabah is CRYSTAL CLEAR. What exactly is our negotiating position given that OBVIOUS clarity?

  2. Ding Gagelonia on July 24th, 2008 11:46 am

    So absolutely correct you are. The Philippines is on the lurch here.

  3. AdB on July 24th, 2008 8:49 pm

    A very very difficult situation indeed. I am familiar with Sabah; have friends there and have maintained contacts with local businessmen and politicians over the last many years; I love the province and holiday there as often as possible. If I had my way, I would live there 6 months of the year.

    Last year during a family holiday in Sabah, I spoke to some Filipinos - most were “legal” having lived there for more than 2 or 3 decades but more than a few were working illegally in restaurants, market places, massage clinics, construction sites (I met many of them while visiting some sites with a view to buying a property in KK), etc.

    One girl from Quezon City waiting at tables in a seafront restaurant said that she had been dumped in KK after she was recruited for a job in Brunei that turned out to be a fake employment agency.

    The problem as you very well put it is that most Filipinos who are in Sabah would rather run the risk of being rounded up for deportation every so often than return permanently to the Philippines.

    I do think that it is essential for the Philippines to negotiate something with Malaysia over this problem. I don’t know if we can do that by raising the spectre of our legal claim on Sabah in the international courts. But something has got to be done. This cannot go on and on.

  4. AdB on July 24th, 2008 9:01 pm

    Benigno,

    The situation of Sabah vis a vis the Philippines is not crystal clear either; while it’s true that 9/10s of occupation gives the occupier a legal hold on the property, i.e., Sabah, it does not follow that Sabah’s occupation by Malaysia is crystal clear.

    There is also a very very sordid issue, definitely something that is not crystal clear with Malaysian immigration control; it is very well known that many of these Malaysian border patrol guards encourage, yes, encourage would be illegal immigrants to cross into Sabah by way of Sandakan because they are a source of additional income, i.e., bribes.

    As a local Filipino businessman there said, they play with Filipinos and treat them like animals (his own words); there is an organised illegal human traficking business across the border involving these Malaysia border patrol fellows with boat owners plying the sea routes between Sulu and the Sabah borders to bring in Filipinos, get paid the bribes, allow them to step into Sabah and one month later round them up and deport them again…. and the game starts again and again.

  5. Bencard on July 25th, 2008 1:43 am

    adb, it may sound heartless, but how do you solve a problem like stupidity? when one is victimized (recruited and deported again and again), watyaganado? is waiting at the table, or giving body massage, in gensan any worst than in kota k?

  6. AdB on July 25th, 2008 3:38 am

    Bencard,

    Doesn’t bother me one bit if you sound heartless or not — merely shows how ignorant you are or know very little at the very least of the situation and to what extent those “victimized” Pinoys would go in order to make a living.

    This should educate you:

    Those Filipinos who would rather get deported “again and again” than remain jobless in the Philippines get to work for at least a month in Sabah before they are deported — very organised they are indeed — or get to sell their wares, trade their craft there, even get into Brunei for a short time to do the same thing, in other words they get to do business in and through Sabah, make enough money to take back home even if they have to pay the Malaysians bribes to get back in month after month.

    Who do you think is building Sabah today? Those same Filipinos are employed in the dozens and dozens of construction sites, building roads and bridges, etc, etc going on in Sabah today; they know that the risks are worth the money they make even if they do it every month. They know there aren’t such opportunities where they come from.

  7. AdB on July 25th, 2008 4:02 am

    The going bribe last year to be allowed entry illegally is between 200 and 500 pesos. One Filipino who was selling fresh water pearls in the Filipino Market there (biggest market in KK and perhaps in the whole of Sabah) told me that he didn’t mind paying that “entry fee” every month because he trades or sells his goods easily, takes stuff that he can sell back home. Obviously it’s far from being an ideal situation, he continues, but said he’d go through the terrible ordeal at the border again and again because he gets to earn a living and most importantly, he gets to do it in a peaceful environment.

  8. AdB on July 25th, 2008 4:15 am

    Filipinos have built Sabah over the years — constructing resorts, condo buildings, subdivisions, roads, bridges, market cleaners, building janitors, worked for the Chinese and Malay Malaysians as servants, drivers, care takers, etc., etc. and very often — I’d say, the authorities know that the majority of the Filipinos who are “building Sabah” are there illegally and tolerate it.

    It’s time the Philippines came to some kind of agreement with Malaysia to prevent the inhuman treatment many of them have been going through.

  9. Ding Gagelonia on July 25th, 2008 5:36 am

    AdB,

    Thank you for your very informative inputs. I’ve been writing about this for some time and gratified that the problem and action that government should do resonates: that we resolve this territorial dispute and that our compatriots be assisted, help them reintegrate in our society and not simply pretend that they do not exist. Some may call them stupid but will we just let those Filipinos in Sabah suffer endlessly simply because we ourselves are in some comfortable nook?

  10. AdB on July 25th, 2008 6:19 am

    And thank you, Mr Gagelonia for raising the issue Sabah and the plight of our “illegal” fellowmen there. It will be heartening for many of them to learn that someone with standing in the Philippine journalistic sphere is seriously concerned for them.

  11. Ding Gagelonia on July 25th, 2008 6:29 am

    AdB,

    You are most welcome sir. Let me share this link to a historical account on how Sabah came into the Philippines’ provenance:

    http://tausugonline.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/how-sabah-was-acquired-by-sulu-sultanate/

  12. What are our rights to something acquired under illegal circumstances? | Filipino Voices on July 25th, 2008 8:56 am

    […] take on illegal Pinoy aliens in Sabah is interesting. It provides a bit of insight on our unique ability to rationalise and — worse […]

  13. alan on July 25th, 2008 2:14 pm

    I noticed that during the early 1960’s invasion of Malaysia and Borneo, including Sabah, by the Indonesians that there was NO Filipinos there to “Defend” their so called property, instead the British had to defend the Malaysian rights of Borneo.

    Why Not???

    So, if you cant Defend it, why should you make claims that its your property?

  14. Captain Clean Boat on December 7th, 2008 6:01 am

    Nice and usefull post, thanks, this is one for my bookmarks!

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