Senator hits 'inhuman' deportation

Senate Minority Leader Teofisto Guingona Jr. urged the government yesterday to file a diplomatic protest against the inhuman treatment accorded by Malaysian authorities to some 1,200 Filipinos in Sabah.

The Filipinos, after being rounded up in their homes by policemen in the dead of night, "were herded like cattle into cramped dirty camps, given food unfit for consumption," then deported back to the Philippines.

Quoting an eyewitness account from an American resident, Harold Sanford Baer, Guingona said hooded Malaysian soldiers brandishing assault rifles broke into homes of Filipinos in Sandakan on the eve of April 25, and took away passports and other documents of the residents.

"Such abuse distorts and disregards basic human rights," the senator said in a statement released yesterday.

Guingona said a first batch of 50 arrested Filipinos were forced into a small cabin of the MV Mary Joy without any personal belongings, and were kept inside until the boat departed for Zamboanga City on the same day.

"The cabin was so tightly stowed that there was hardly any space for the deportees to stand. For four hours they could not use the toilet, could not leave the cabin, could not walk outside," he said.

He said other deportees numbering more than 1,000 were sent to concentration camps and given spoiled food.

"The complaint of many Filipinos forcibly deported from Sabah deserves a strong diplomatic protest from the government," he stressed.

He noted that although it is the right of the Malaysian government to crack down against illegal aliens, Filipinos in that country also have a right to be treated like human beings rather than like animals.

He also dismissed as false earlier claims that the crackdown was unrelated to the kidnapping of tourists and resort workers in an island off Sabah on Easter Sunday (April 23).

"When the ambassador from Malaysia met with the hostages and some Abu Sayyaf commanders last week, one of their reported demands was to stop illegal deportation from the estimated 500,000 Filipinos living in Sabah, most of them Muslims," he said.

The senator said it is the duty of the Philippine government to protect Filipinos anywhere. "Even if the demand for protection comes from an illegal source, it puts into focus a need to assess the problem and take necessary measures," he said.

To address the situation in Sabah, where many Filipinos go to trade goods or visit relatives, Guingona proposed the creation of a legislative-executive commission to make recommendations.