'Illegal immigrants obtained M'sian papers in Philippines'

SABAH RCI The royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on immigrants in Sabah today heard that illegal immigrants had been able to obtain Malaysian documentation even while they were in the Philippines.

Macarius Sabinus - a field officer tasked with registering illegal immigrants in Sabah and issuing temporary receipts (kad burung-burung) to them - discovered they had obtained the document in Bongoa, Tawi-Tawi, even before he had registered them.

"When they came for registration, they already had the kad burung-burung in their hand, saying that they got them from somebody in Bongoa.

"But the receipt's had a different serial number and the Chief Minister's Department's (JKM) stamp is different from ours," said Macarius, who is a researcher with think-tank Institute for Development Studies (Sabah) or IDS, under the state JKM.

IDS - formerly known as Institute for Public Policy Analysis (IPPA) - had been tasked with a large scale registration of illegal immigrants in Sabah from 1986 to 1988.

The project aimed to identify and find out the total number of illegal immigrants in Sabah, said Macarius.

The kad burung-burung acted as a receipt to acknowledge that the illegal immigrants had been registered, but is not considered as an identification document.
        
'Illegal immigrants had blue ICs'

During that time, Macarius said, some of the illegal immigrants who came forward to register already had blue identity cards or National Registration Department (NRD) receipts, a document issued prior to a blue identity card and carries the same status of that of a citizen.

"We were instructed to register them as long as they did not have valid blue identity cards.

"We still registered them (as illegal immigrants) because they claimed that they got the (identity) card from somewhere else and not from the NRD," he added.

Macarius - who is part of 12 teams consisting of 12-13 personnel each, in conducting the survey - stressed that they had alerted the special branch and the JKM about the matter, but that they did not go beyond their authority of registering the illegal immigrants.

In one instance, Macarius said one of the person who wanted to register bore a blue identity card even though he did not appear to be a citizen.

"He did not sound like a Malaysian, he could only speak Suluk and (fortunately,) I can also converse in Suluk," he said.

Conducting officer Manoj Kurup - who questioned Macarius - noted that syndicates tend to forge on any forms of documentation issued by the government for immigrants, for profit.

Macarius is the 109th witnesses to testify at the RCI which first began its first hearing in January and is being presided by former Chief Judge of Borneo Steve Shim.