‘Esscom will not keep us safe’

Sandakan MP Stephan Wong strongly believes the problem lies within Sabah's own territory as many Filipinos and Indonesians have obtained ICs illegally.

SANDAKAN: The Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) which was established on March 7 2013 after the bloody Sulu intrusion that claimed the lives of nine Malaysian security personnel in Lahad Datu will not be able to curb the fear amongst Sabahans, let alone safeguard the east Sabah coastal line, Stephan Wong said.

The DAP lawmaker described that the attack and invasion cannot be stopped by simply creating a security headquarters; as the real problem lies within the society.

“To hope for the problem to be solved by just implementing a new security system is so naive. Esscom will not solve the problem,”

“The problem comes from inside not from outside. You have marine police, navy and so forth, it is not that easy to come in, they are already inside Sabah,”

“The problem that should be addressed is how the project IC happened and who is responsible for it,” he said.

Stephan then explained that he has no intention to make any xenophobia remarks but merely lambasting the unjust system of giving out IC’s to Southern Filipinos and Indonesians.

“The system is wrong; it has nothing to do with xenophobia or whatsoever,” he said.

He then branded the ‘Project IC’ as an act of betrayal as the local tribes, especially poor Sabahans, are the ones who have to pay the price.

“For me this is an act of betrayal. The Kadazan for instance, they are now the minority. Because of Project IC,”

“This is not fair for us, the government should thank us. The development in Kota Kinabalu comes from the tax payers money. They took the money and then leave us to suffer,” he said

Awaiting RCI’s report

Meanwhile, Stephan is also hoping to read the upcoming Royal Commission Inquiry’s (RCI) report which is schedule to be released by the end of this month.

Stephan told FMT that he is looking forward to know the type of recommendations that would be stated in the report.

Esscom covers 1,400 kms of the east coast of Sabah from Kudat to Tawau following the invasion of Lahad Datu by the Sulu Sultanate Kingdom in February this year.

Atotal of 235 militants armed with weapons led by Sultan Jamalul Kiram III arrived by boats from Simunul Island in Tawi Tawi on February 11. The group calling themselves as Royal Security of the Sultanate Sulu and North Borneo stated their objective is to claim eastern Sabah.

Due to the intrusion, Ops Daulat was launched to flush out Sulu gunmen. 56 gunmen were killed in the battle, while six civilians lost their lives during the attack. During the standoff, 104 alleged Filipinos (Sulu gunmen) were also arrested.

However, a few months later, another attack cum kidnap happened in Pom Pom Island in Sampoerna where a Taiwanese man aged 57 was shot dead and a Taiwanese woman aged 58, abducted by a group of men.

To-date, the fate of the 58 year old woman is yet to be known. Police have described the incident as an isolated incident and said that the state’s security was under control with sufficient security personnel capacity.