"The deportation is seasonal because after they use the Filipinos for seasonal agricultural and logging work and for elections, they deport them," said Ambet Yuson, regional director of the Building and Wood Workers' International.

The last general elections were conducted in Malaysia on March 8. They are held every four years.

A ranking government official confirmed this treatment of so-called illegal migrants -- mostly Filipinos and Indonesians -- in Sabah.

The official, who asked not to be named as he is not authorized to speak on diplomatic matters, said "illegal migrants," including Filipinos, are issued residence cards to allow them to vote.

"But after the election, these cards are taken back from them," he said.

Yuson is reluctant about calling the Filipinos and Indonesians who vote in Malaysian elections “flying voters” because most of them have been born in Sabah, have not known another home but Sabah, do not speak another language but those spoken by Sabahans.

"For all intents and purposes, they are citizens of Sabah, but the government refuses to recognize them and give them their legal status," he said.

Yuson, who is one of the organizers of the parallel global forum on migration, explained the critical role these so-called illegal migrants in Sabah and Sarawak play in Malaysian politics.

As these two regions are autonomous, the ruling political parties here are only in coalition with the ruling United Malays National Organization of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi and are being wooed to switch by the party of popular opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Yuson said Anwar's party only needs 30 members of parliament (MP) to cross over to him to acquire a simple majority and enable a change in the Malaysian government leadership. He said Sabah has about 20 MPs while Sarawak has 31.

Undersecretary for Migrant Affairs Esteban Conejos has estimated that there were some 200,000 Filipinos in Malaysia, the majority working in plantations, construction and trade in resource-rich Sabah state on Borneo island.

He said an average of 10,000 were deported each year from Sabah to the nearby southern Philippines but this was expected to go up sharply with the new Malaysian plan to deport tens of thousands of illegal migrants from Sabah.

Conejos said many of them had lived in Sabah for a long time.

"Some of them have been there for so long that they no longer have relatives in the Philippines and don't know how to speak Filipino dialects," he said.

"They don't understand why they need a Philippine passport or a visa to be in Sabah."

A Philippine claim for sovereignty over Sabah has laid dormant for decades in the international courts.

Historically thousands of people have moved freely between the southern Philippine islands and Sabah daily. Many Filipinos have families in Sabah and have made their homes there.

In June, Malaysia announced a campaign to drive out migrants, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, who have settled in Sabah.

Politicians in Sabah pushed the national government to expel the illegals, saying they were a burden on the economy and pose a security threat by engaging in crime and the drugs trade. With Agence France-Presse

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Malaysia, Filled with wonders......
written by ken liew, July 15, 2008

Where anything is possible, f you have the connection......

But Malaysia's governmenting party wont admit it......

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