Aid plan ready for Sabah returnees

President Gloria Arroyo has finalised a comprehensive assistance plan comprising relief and rehabilitation for returning Filipino-Muslims who were deported from Malaysia after a crackdown on illegal immigrants.

She also promised to do everything to seek justice for the alleged abuse they received from authorities in detention at the processing centres in Sabah.

Arroyo said the 13-year-old Filipina who was sexually abused at the detention centre in Kota Kinabalu will get justice.

She asked the foreign affairs department to compile the testimonies of the alleged victims of abuse, saying this will be needed when the victims eventually decide to file a class suit against their identified oppressors in Malaysia. "It is important that the whole nation unites on this issue," Arroyo said.

She stated that all Filipinos were outraged by the fate of the Filipino-Muslims who were deported from Sabah.

"But we should focus now on how to protect the returnees and the remaining Filipinos in (the Malaysian state of) Sabah while seeking justice for the abuses they endured," said Arroyo in her regular radio programme.

All Filipinos, she added, must extend assistance to the thousands of deported Filipinos.

Arroyo noted that the whole nation should focus on extending livelihood projects and immediate rehabilitation programmes in southern Philippines. She called for nationwide fund-raising, as well as the provision of food, shelter and clothing at the many hastily established refugee centres in Zamboanga City, Bongao and Tawi-Tawi, southern Philippines.

"We have to help them until they can stand on their own feet and become productive citizens," Arroyo explained. "We need to find jobs for them. We need to comfort them in their despair. And we need to help provide them with food, medicine and temporary shelter."

Arroyo vowed that the government will reintegrate those who have returned and that she will "create more jobs for the jobless, especially for the thousands of people... who have lost their livelihood".

Arroyo assigned the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) and the social welfare department with the task of receiving donations.

At the same time, she said the Philippine consular office in Malaysia will ask for access to the detention centres to provide legal assistance to those deported.

Arroyo pointed out that the Philippine foreign affairs and labour departments will work together to provide proper documentation to those Filipino-Muslims who want to continue working in Malaysia.

She ordered the labour department to seek labour agreements that are beneficial for the overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Malaysia.

The foreign affairs department, she noted, will continue to ask Malaysia for improved conditions at the detention centres so that those deported aren't raped or punished before being repatriated to the southern Philippines.

Arroyo was diplomatic and did not condemn Malaysia. She praised Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed for having called a moratorium on the deportation of Filipino-Muslims, and for having pledged to give justice to the 13-year-old girl who was reportedly raped by a policeman at a detention centre.

At the same time, non-government militant organisations launched a campaign for the assistance of the returning Filipino-Muslims.

A Task Force called "major assistance" will handle documentation of alleged human rights violations committed by Malaysian authorities at the detention centres in Sabah.

Migrante International, May One Movement, and Gabriela, an alliance of women's groups, said they will send an independent fact-finding team to Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, to gather testimonies from returning Filipino-Muslims. The groups said they will provide medical and counselling services to the deported.

"Our effort, however small, will hopefully provide the assistance that the government has yet to fully provide," said Emmi de Jesus, deputy secretary general of Gabriela.

Since January this year, thousands of Filipino illegal migrants have been leaving the Malaysian state of Sabah due to a Malaysian crackdown on illegal migrants.

A Philippine fact-finding delegation admitted that the deportees were now transported by air-conditioned buses, and were placed in clean and spruced up detention centres.

The joint statement of the Philippine delegation and the Malaysian authorities even said the Malaysian government "has exerted all efforts to ease the hardships of Filipino detainees/deportees".

"Apparently, they have spruced up the detention facilities so Nur Jaafar (head of the Philippine delegation) will like what he sees," said Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary, Blas Ople.

"Apparently the policy of friendship extended by President Gloria Arroyo has helped change the behaviour of the Malaysians overnight. Even the cops in Sabah suddenly turned good," Ople added.