Today’s View: A bitter pill for Moro migrant workers

(Last of a three-part column)

 However, the most vulnerable are the hundreds of undocumented migrant workers who have been the backbone of Sabah’s economy.  They work in Sabah as domestic helpers, construction workers, plantation workers, street sweepers, waitress, cook and other menial jobs.  Despite of their long stay in Sabah, they cannot get the IC or permit needed to be residents or workers in Sabah.

By AMIRA ALI LIDASAN
Davao Today

Now, Sabah is a picture of bitter salvation not only for the Moro people, but the rest of the Filipinos who were forced to be migrant workers.  The Tausugs, Yakan, Sama, Badjao, Iranon and Maguindanao, and even the Visayan people went to Sabah to find work competing.  They often anger the unionized Malaysian workers — to the bliss of Malaysian capitalists — because Filipino workers flooded Malaysia to be part of the source of cheap and casual labor force.

Unequal standard within the labor force of Malaysia is felt even among skilled professionals.  Migrant professionals coming from all over Southeast Asia receive lower wages than Malaysian workforce.

However, the most vulnerable are the hundreds of undocumented migrant workers who have been the backbone of Sabah’s economy.  They work in Sabah as domestic helpers, construction workers, plantation workers, street sweepers, waitress, cook and other menial jobs.  Despite of their long stay in Sabah, they cannot get the IC or permit needed to be residents or workers in Sabah.

Over the years, the Malaysian government would always conduct a crackdown on undocumented workers whom they call “halaws.”  The biggest deportation that we have witnessed was in 2002 where more than 2,000 halaws imprisoned in Sabah were turned over to the Philippine Navy and left ashore at Bongao Port in Tawi-Tawi.  Both the local and the national governments were not ready to accommodate the influx of the halaw.  Until now they admit the difficulty of absorbing the same number should the military attack in Lahad Datu continues.

I think this incident in Lahad Datu may well be the defining moment of the Kirams.

The fighting is now beyond the claim of the Sultanate over Sabah, but of the people exacting justice against the ill treatment of Malaysian government to the migrants and migrant workers in Sabah.

The challenge therefore is how the Kirams would forward the rights of the people living in Sabah, not only of their claim of ownership over Sabah.  In numbers, these victims are far more than the numbers of the Sultanate’s army.

In our interviews with the evacuees and halaws, they complained how vicious the Malaysian government has treated the undocumented migrant workers.  Every now and then, the Malaysian government would order a crackdown, setting up checkpoints and raiding houses and communities of migrant workers.  Stories of men being tortured and women being raped by Malaysian police abound in the testimonies of the halaws.  They were denied food and detained for several days before turning them over to the Philippine Navy.

However, because of the preference for cheap labor by Malaysian capitalists, the halaws would often return to the same unsafe route to Sabah after being interviewed in processing centers in Zamboanga and Tawi-Tawi.  Some of them do not even reach the Philippine shores, as they jump off from the naval boat where a small boat awaits them in the middle of the sea to ferry them back to Sabah.

Just like any migrant worker, the halaws would take in all these indignities just so they can find work and feed their family, a responsibility that should have been in the hands of the Philippine government and not pressed down on Filipino individuals.

So Princess Jacel has all the right in the world to condemn President Aquino and the previous administrations of abandoning them to include the migrant workers in Sabah.

According to some evacuees we have interviewed who fled Malaysia due to the violent response of the Malaysian government to the presence of the Sultanate forces in Lahad Datu, the crackdown is harsher now because the Malaysian police are considering some of the halaws and evacuees as part of the Lahad Datu forces.  Tausug halaws and evacuees are segregated from other tribes during crackdown and even inside prison cells.

However, we hear stories of men who are not part of the Sultan’s army who are joining the ranks of the army in Lahad Datu.  From different parts of Mindanao, we hear stories of groups of men riding the boat, stopping over Tawi-Tawi and slowly going into the shores of Sabah to join the Sultan’s forces.  We learned from stories that these are families of the victims of the Malaysian authorities.

I think sabil (martyrdom or war) has now taken over sabar (patience) of the migrant workers in Sabah.  They cannot take the maltreatment anymore.  They see Malaysia as evil, not as a fellow Muslim kindred.

And as for President Aquino, they see him as an indecisive President who cannot keep a consistent approach towards resolving the problems of Mindanao.  For while he boasts of witnessing during his administration, along with the Prime Minister of Malaysia, the crafting of the Framework Agreement which would guide the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Government, he also became a witness/miron or has even prodded the massacre of his fellow Filipino people in Sabah.

First part: The princess of her people
Second part: A royalty to the colonials

Amira Ali Lidasan is an Iranun and hails from a prominent Moro clan in Maguindanao.  She is an observer of Moro politics and an activist.  Write to Amira at amirah.lidasan@gmail.com