POSITION PAPER ON
The Continuing Malaysian Government Crackdown on Undocumented Migrant Filipinos

By the MIGRANTE Sectoral Party and MIGRANTE International
March 15, 2005

The presence of our compatriots in Malaysia

In Malaysia, go to the factories, the offices, clubs, construction sites, the rubber and palm oil plantations, the logging and timber operations and even the homes and little shops and you would most likely find a Filipino worker.

There are close to 800,000 Filipinos in Malaysia. They can be located in Sabah and Labuan territory in East Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur at the Klang Valley, Penang, Johor and Malacca in the Mainland.

There are three categories of Filipinos in Sabah: Filipino Sabahans, refugees and undocumented migrants.

Filipino-Sabahans are Filipinos born in Sabah of Filipino parents whose stay in the state was legal. Their parents, generally professionals and technicians, were employed in Sabah before Sabah joined the Federation of Malaysia.

Filipino refugees are Muslim Filipinos who fled from Mindanao to Sabah from 1972 to 1979 at the height of the separatist-military conflicts during the martial law period.

The exodus of our kababayan to Malaysia continues to this day. The Filipinos in Malaysia are mainly from Mindanao, majority of whom had entered through the Philippines' southern backdoor, using boats to hop from island to island.

Estimates of the Philippine government and various non-government organizations in the region place the overseas Filipino populace in Malaysia at 712,104 workers.

As of December 2004, only 213,000 are considered by the Malaysian government to be legally employed, while the rest are undocumented workers (499,104).

MIGRANTE still considers these estimates as very conservative.

Filipinos in Malaysia are employed in different fields wherein the highest number of Filipinos work in the service sector such as hotel workers, domestic helpers and entertainers.

Both the Malaysian and Philippine governments are aware that overseas Filipinos provide the much needed labor in the country's services and industries that are shunned by the local workers.

The Implications of a Crackdown Against Filipino Migrants

What we have is an ongoing crackdown of the Malaysian government that targets our 500,000 undocumented Filipino compatriots in Malaysia.

After extending the amnesty period four times since it declared an impending ouster of undocumented nationals in 2004, the Malaysian government is now on the 15th day of Ops Tegas, meaning "Firm Operations," that started on March 1.

It first gave a grace period of until October 29, 2004. This was later changed to December 31 also last year. But due to the killer tsunami that affected at least 11 countries, and killed over 150,000 people, the deadline was further extended to January 31 this year. The Malaysian government gave a final extension of up to February 28, 2005 for the amnesty.

Malaysia initially deferred the expulsion procedures supposedly to provide opportunity for illegal aliens to avail of the host country's so-called amnesty. Those who fail to avail of amnesty face harsher penalties such as 6 strokes of a rattan cane, a fine of up to 10,000 ringgits (P143,000) and jail time of up to five years.

Those who availed of amnesty were spared from caning, but were eventually forced to lose their jobs and livelihood.

The inhumane treatment experienced by Filipinos in the hands of Malaysian authorities back in 2002 bespeaks of the spotty human rights record of the Malaysian government and the negligence of the Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs: the crammed and unsanitary detention cells, the ill-treatment and sexual abuse against detainees by Malaysian guards.

In fact, Malaysia has gained international notoriety for the utterly deplorable means by which it stuffed and crammed in close to 300,000 undocumented migrants (including 17,000 Filipinos) in detention camps and eventually on unsanitary navy and commercial vessels three years ago. At that time, at least six Filipino children less than a year old died at sea while being transported back to Philippine shores.

The ongoing crackdown, that has netted 216 Filipinos on the first day, is being implemented by the Malaysian government with involvement of 560,000 Relas, or People's Volunteer Corps to track down and arrest undocumented migrants. At the ratio of one for every two undocumented migrants and police powers, their number is enough to cover all the estimated undocumented nationals in Malaysia. The Relas has not been trained in humane arrest procedures, respect for human rights and international humanitarian law. Hence, the crackdown is highly open to abuse of authority.

The volunteers stand to earn 80 Malaysian ringgits (1,144 pesos) for every undocumented migrant arrested.

Undocumented Filipinos who are caught will get jail time, be fined, and caned (using rattan sticks) 6 times before being deported.

These facts show that any crackdown was, is, and never will be a humane procedure as what the DFA would want the public to believe!

What has the Philippine government done to help our undocumented compatriots in Malaysia?

According to the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Philippine Embassy to Malaysia has already issued 19,000 travel documents since the start of the immigration amnesty in October 2004 and an estimated 68,000 Filipinos have already come home through both the official channel and informal routes using pump boats and kumpits.

It is the prime responsibility and mandate of the Philippine government to ensure the safety and security of Filipinos and protect the inherent human rights in Malaysia and elsewhere. The Department of Foreign Affairs should be at the forefront of efforts in fulfilling this mandate.

The government has to exercise all diplomatic means, while maintaining and asserting the political will, to pressure the Malaysian government to prevent human rights violations against our compatriots in Malaysia.

Preparations that were made for the safe repatriation of undocumented Filipinos has not employed all resources available to attend to the thousands of Filipinos who are set to be deported. And Congress has made a law to ensure that a fund is available for crisis situations such as the ongoing crackdown in Malaysia.

Section 15 of Republic Act 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, specifically provides for the repatriation of workers and the creation of an emergency repatriation fund. The said emergency repatriation fund consists of one hundred million pesos (P100,000,000), initially sourced from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), and which would be replenished yearly through the General Appropriations Act (GAA).

The Department of Foreign Affairs is mandated to administer and manage the repatriation of overseas Filipinos in distress, including those who will be deported from Malaysia. How this repatriation fund was actually spent in accordance with the law, and how much of it remains is a big question mark to overseas Filipino organizations and those who direly need repatriation assistance, including our undocumented compatriots in Malaysia.

There are reports that only P35 million of this initial amount remains. But this amount is over and above the increasing appropriations Congress allots annually to the DFA that amounted to P4.096 billion in 2003; P4.9 billion in 2004 and P5.02 billion this year.

The slew of issuances from the DFA and Malacañang show that government has not done enough to help protect the rights and well-being of undocumented Filipinos in Malaysia.

In the current crackdown on undocumented migrants the DFA has been content with appealing to the Malaysian government for the extension of the amnesty; and to undocumented Filipinos who would fall victim to the crackdown to avail of the said amnesty;

Government is not alarmed with the news blackout on the ongoing crackdown in Malaysia. No new reports on the plight of our compatriots and their families have arrived since March 9, 2005.

Our Recommendations

In view of the current crackdown in Malaysia and the extreme lack of information on the real conditions of our undocumented compatriots in the said country; we put forward the following recommendations:

1. An on-site ocular visit to the detention centers in Sabah, Malaysia at the soonest possible time;

2. Urge Malacanang take concrete actions to prevent the torture of our undocumented compatriots in Malaysia;

3. Direct the Department of Foreign Affairs, in coordination with the Department of Labor and Employment to expeditiously assist distressed Filipino workers by facilitating the legal extension of their stay, providing legal assistance to those whose salaries and other benefits have been withheld by their Malaysian employers; and

4. Initiate an inquiry and demand the Department of Foreign Affairs to submit a report on the status of the P100 million emergency repatriation fund to ascertain how it was actually used. #