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DESPITE
Malaysia’s current crackdown on undocumented Filipino
workers, its ambassador to the Philippines said its
economy would still need to rehire these people to be
able to augment the labor requirement of their
industries.
Malaysian Ambassador to the Philippines Dato’Ahmad
Rasidi Hazizi said his government would still pursue the
deportation of thousands of undocumented Filipino
workers despite concerns aired on the reported inhumane
treatment against the deportees, specifically children
and women.
He said
that with the removal of thousands of undocumented
workers, new ones would be needed.
A
Filipino diplomat estimates that the number of
undocumented Filipinos in Malaysia has reached 400,000.
The official also said the deportation of thousands of
undocumented workers could cause the collapse of the
Malaysian economy, specifically in Sabah.
“We
would like to hire more Filipino workers and rehire
those who were deported, but the workers must enter
Malaysia legally,” said Ambassador Hazizi in an
interview at the sidelines of the Philippine launch of
the International Trade Malaysia exhibition on Wednesday
at the Heritage Hotel in Pasay City.
Hazizi
said a lot of Filipino deportees have argued that they
have been living in Malaysia for more than a decade,
thus, qualifying them for the legalization of their
stay.
“But how
can we legalize their stay if these people could not
even speak the Malaysian language to prove they have
been in the country for many years?” he asked.
The ambassador said the presence of the undocumented
foreign workers in Malaysia has been causing “a lot of
social problems” for his country. He, however, did not
elaborate on these problems. But diplomatic officials in
Manila admitted that a number of undocumented Filipino
workers in Sabah were involved in illegal recruitment of
women for prostitution and in the trafficking of
prohibited drugs.
Diplomatic and labor officials of the Philippines and
Malaysia met this week on the plight of thousands of
undocumented Filipino workers in Malaysia facing
deportation in the last three weeks.
Close
to 1,000 undocumented Filipino workers have already been
deported from the disputed state of Sabah starting this
month and were brought to Zamboanga City.
Hazizi
said the two governments have “agreed on the treatment”
of the deportees—that is, the children and women should
not be held in detention centers while awaiting their
deportation.
In 2003
the Department of Foreign Affairs filed two diplomatic
protests against Malaysia following the deaths of two
babies who were among the thousands of Filipinos shipped
out of Sabah, and the rape of a 12-year old Filipino
girl by Malaysian police inside the detention center.
Filipino
deportees have also complained of inhumane treatment
while detained in Malaysian holding areas where they
were kept starving, and the male deportees beaten by the
Malaysian police. |
