COTABATO City, Philippines – The Regional Human Rights Commission (RCHC) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has started documenting complaints of abuses by Filipino evacuees from Sabah.
RCHC chief Laisa Alamia said on Friday that her office is now preparing the sworn statements by evacuees that would corroborate earlier allegations of brutality by Malaysian authorities.
Local officials in Tawi-Tawi said dozens of evacuees have told them different stories of how they were maltreated and even forced to leave their homes even if they have documents to show that they are legally working in Sabah.
Alamia said they also received reports that the residence papers of some Filipinos, who have evacuated to Tawi-Tawi, were confiscated by Malaysian authorities before they left Sabah.
Alamia, meanwhile, called for the immediate intervention of international human rights organizations to help look into the alleged abuses being committed by Malaysian security forces.
The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees has an office which covers the ARMM provinces, she said.
“We are now investigating on this. Documentations are being done now,†Alamia said.
About 2,000 evacuees from Sabah have entered the ARMM’s adjoining Tawi-Tawi and Sulu provinces after hostilities in Lahad Datu between followers of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III and Malaysian security forces erupted two weeks ago.
The Tawi-Tawi provincial government and the office of ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman have a pool of relief workers attending to the needs of the evacuees, who arrived in Tawi-Tawi on board small vessels.
The hostilities in Sabah have virtually stopped the flow of commerce and trade between the island’s trading ports and the municipalities in Tawi-Tawi and some areas in Sulu.
About 80 percent of consumer goods peddled in stores in Tawi-Tawi, including rice and petroleum products, come from Sabah.
Humanitarian and welfare desks
Social Welfare and Development Secretary Dinky Soliman announced on Thursday that the government has set up humanitarian and welfare desks in Sabah to attend to the needs of Filipinos there.
She also said that two Rapid Response Teams (RRT1 and RRT2) were deployed in different areas in Sabah where there are large concentration of Filipinos.
Soliman said that RRT1 visited the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) Plantation in Sabah and Sarawak that currently employees 451 Filipinos with some 350 dependents doing mostly field and maintenance work.
She said that the RRT1 reported that the FELDA management has assured the safety and continued employment of Filipinos in the company.
Soliman added that there are four evacuation centers established inside the FELDA plantations with 1,464 total evacuees broken down as follows: Cenderawasih Gym-507; Embara Budi-468; Fajar Harapan-208; and Gemalapura-281.
She said that most of the evacuees are Filipinos but there are Indonesians, Timorese and local villagers as well.
“There are no Filipino FELDA workers in the evacuation centers,†Soliman said.
The RRT1 also visited Kampung Batu-Batu, where many villagers expressed their intent to return to the Philippines.
Soliman said that many of these villagers are undocumented and mostly are natives of Tawi-Tawi.
ARMM documenting abuses on Filipinos in Sabah
A boy leans on a poster as people gather for a rally outside the Malaysian Embassy at the financial district of Makati city, Wednesday, March 13, 2013 to protest alleged human rights abuses by Malaysian forces against Filipinos living in the Malaysian state of Sabah. AP/Bullit Marquez