13 June 2000; 12:32 pm - Bernama

By Azman Ujang

KUALA LUMPUR, June 13 (Bernama)- "The people of Mindanao, especially the Bangsamoro, are deprived of their liberty, freedom, income and everything.

It is the Manila government that enjoys the fruits of Mindanao".

These are the words of Nadzmi Saadulan or better known as Commander Global, a leader of the armed group now holding 21 people mostly foreign tourists hostage on Jolo island in southern Philippines.

In a revealing interview with The Star newspaper published on Tuesday, Global was trying to justify why the group had kidnapped the 21 people who include nine Malaysians, on the Sipadan island off Sabah on April 23.

The Sipadan incident and its aftermath once again exposes the hopeless situation the Philippine government is facing in dealing with armed separatist rebel groups roaming freely in predominantly Muslim Mindanao.

Global said the Sipadan operation was carried out because of history.

While history -- Mindanao was once a sovereign country before becoming part of the Philippines -- might justify their struggle for an independent homeland in the predominantly Christian republic, the kidnapping of 21 people completely unconnected with their cause could very well wipe out whatever sympathy and support the international community might have for their cause.

And they showed their true colours by choosing to stage the kidnap on Sipadan, one of the most peaceful spots in the world -- where the tourists were savouring the diving paradise before being taken with the Malaysian workers across the Sulu sea to the southern Philippines.

For all intents and purposes, the kidnap also betrays the very people whose interest the kidnappers claim to protect.

These are the tens of thousands of Filipino immigrants from the ethnic Bangsamoro, who have made the Malaysian state of Sabah their home since the first exodus began in the early 1970's following a rebellion in southern Phillpines where lawlessness prevails till this modern day.

Their cause is weakened even further when one of the two demands they made in exchange for releasing the hostages, the setting up of a Sabah Commission to investigate human rights "abuses" of the Bangsamoro in Sabah, is taken into its proper perspective.

In the interview with The Star, Global "clarified" the demand which the group purportedly presented to the Philippine government negotiating team in their on-again, off-again talks.

He did not mention human rights "abuses" but said the group " wants the Malaysian government to treat our brothers in Islam in Sabah fairly so that they can participate in nation building in Malaysia".

" That is why one of the demands is the creation of a Sabah Commission by having an office created and funded by the Malaysian government and headed by a Filipino who is a Bangsamoro with a valid Malaysian identity card", he said.

Malaysia has rejected this demand as preposterous, and if Global and his fellow rebel leaders know what they are talking about, said a senior Malaysian official, it should not have been made in the first place.

There are 600,000 foreign immigrants in Sabah, which shares its borders with the Philippines and Indonesia, of which over 250,000 -- equivalent to the population of Brunei -- are Filipinos.

The Filipinos in Sabah are treated better than in their own homeland, which is why they not only continue to stay but their numbers keep swelling at the expense of discomfort and security of the local population, not to mention at great costs to the Malaysian government.

Of the total number of Filipinos in Sabah, 60,000 are allowed to stay indefinitely and exempted from the immigration law that requires immigrants to have travel documents. These people are also allowed to work in any sector of employment.

There are also 120,000 Filipino workers and their dependents in the plantation and other industries, leaving about 80,000 classified as illegals, said the official, who made public for the first time details of the Filipino immigrant situation in the country.

" There are more illegals from the Philippines in Sabah than from Indonesia because Manila does not even have a consulate in the state that would have made it easier for Filipinos to have travel documents. In comparison, the Indonesian government has already established two consulates in Sabah, one in Kota Kinabalu and the other in Tawau," he said.

Despite Malaysia's efforts to get the Philippines to set up at least one consulate office in Sabah to facilitate the issue of passports to its citizens, it has not done so. This increases further the workload of the already over-worked special government task force handling the immigrant problem.

The task force in 1997 carried out a three-month regularisation exercise at Malaysia's expense during which about 20,000 Filipinos without any travel documents were "legalised".

" This has never been done anywhere in the world," said the official.

Malaysia's hospitality to the Bangsamoro also extends well beyond providing the roof over their heads as they also avail themselves to hospital facilities while their children are studying in the local schools.

The official said some 21,000 Filipino children have enrolled in government schools, and the number is one-third the population of Perlis, Malaysia's smallest state.

Although those studying in secondary schools are charged a RM20 fee per month, over 70 per cent of them do not pay up.

Based on the student-teacher ratio, the Filipino children require 910 teachers whose total salaries would come up to RM1.4 million monthly; and at an average of 500 students per school, accomodating them means making available 42 schools at an average cost of RM4 million each.

The cost of treatment for the Filipinos at government hospitals is equally glaring given the policy that such hospitals accept patients irrespective of whether they are citizens or not.

A more telling figure concerns the bad debts suffered by government hospitals -- out of the RM20 million worth of unpaid hospital bills, RM15 million is owed by the foreign immigrants including the Filipinos.

Out of the two million out-patients registered at government hospitals in 1998, 180,000 were foreign immigrants and on a ratio of one doctor to 500 patients, treating them would require the services of 360 doctors.

The plantation, construction and other industries in Sabah have been providing jobs to the tens of thousands of Filipino men who earn between RM15 and RM35 daily depending on their skills, apart from thousands more of the women who work as maids.

The presence of the Filipinos has created squatter colonies all over the state.

A sample census was conducted in 15 districts covering 7,832 squatter houses occupied by 50,400 people on government land.

" If they were to be charged a monthly rent of RM50 for one house, they would have to pay RM4.6 million a year in rentals, but they are occupying these houses free of charge," said the official in citing another example of the Malaysian hospitality for the Filipinos.

While the armed group has made a big fuss about the need for "fair" treatment of the Bangsamoro in Sabah, it appears oblivious to the fact that a large number of them are involved in criminal activities.

According to the official, out of the 1,258 prisoners now in the four jails in Sabah, 722 or 57 per cent are Filipinos.

In order to check the influx of illegal immigrants into the state, the Malaysian authorities are also forced to undertake yet another expensive job -- deportation.

" Last year, 22,000 were deported. In the case of the Filipinos, those that were deported were mainly people who have served their time in our prisons and those we consider undesirable for being involved in smuggling and other illegal activities.

" And even then, they are deported according to rules and regulations and treated as humanely as possible," he added.

Despite Malaysia being very much an aggrieved party in the hostage crisis -- with about half the hostages being Malaysians and the foreign tourists kidnapped while holidaying in Malaysia -- there appears to be attempts in the Philippines to blame Malaysia for efforts it is making to help end the hostage crisis.

The latest effort comes from Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar who goes to Manila tomorrow for talks with President Joseph Estrada.

Global said in the interview that his group's mission is to create a scenario where the Philippine government, whom he accused of delaying the negotiation process to end the crisis, would have "migraine".

Malaysians who are so used to a law and order situation are simply puzzled and, like the hostages themselves, frustrated by the fact that while every journalist or cameraman has managed to walk in and out of the hostages' hideout in Jolo to meet with their captors, the Philippine authorities appeared to have done little, if anything, to nab them.

While the Philippines might consider itself immune to the judgement that the international community might pass on the country for dragging its feet in ending the crisis, it could start at least to do better than it has done, or not done, over the past 50 days of the hostage drama.

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