100,000 Pinoys in Malaysia face jail terms, whipping

Some 100,000 illegal Filipino entrants in Malaysia will be thrown in jail, whipped and fined heavily if they do not leave the country before July 31, the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) said yesterday.

"Starting August this year, Malaysia will implement a new law that spells out stiffer penalties for those who entered the country illegally as well as those employing and harboring them," OWWA Administrator Wilhelm Soriano said.

The blanket amnesty offered to over 500,000 foreign illegal immigrants in Malaysia will end on July 31. To date, some 150,000 illegals, Filipinos included, have left the country since the announcement of the amnesty in March.

The Philippine Embassy in Malaysia and OWWA have put in place a voluntary repatriation program for Filipino illegals availing of amnesty.

Soriano said he has instructed OWWA regional branches to inform the families of affected overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) that they can avail of the agency’s various livelihood programs in lieu of the voluntary repatriation.

He said Philippine Ambassador to Malaysia Jose Brillantes has dispatched embassy and labor personnel to Malaysia’s outskirts, exhorting Filipino illegals to come out in the open and avail of the program.

Brillantes has also been negotiating with the Malaysian government for the extension of the amnesty program.

Soriano said Filipino illegals have been advised to leave Malaysia before Aug. 1 because after the country’s Immigration Act of 1953 is enforced, its government will not be lenient or entertain appeals.

Malaysia’s new immigration law spells out stiffer penalties, including whipping, for those illegally entering the country or employing illegals.

Under the new provisions of the law, illegal entry into Malaysia carries a maximum fine of RM 10,000 or a jail term not exceeding five years or both. Mandatory whipping not exceeding six strokes will also be enforced.

Malaysian employees who hire illegals are liable to fines of RM 10,000 to RM 50,000 per employee, and a jail term not exceeding one year. Employers who hire more than five illegal immigrants are liable for mandatory whipping and jail terms extending to a maximum of five years.

OWWA estimates there are 595,000 OFWs in Malaysia, the majority of which are domestic helpers who entered the country through the backdoors of Mindanao.

Earlier, Malaysian Ambassador Taufik Mohamed Noor stressed that Filipinos who comprise a big number of the illegals were not being singled out, and that Kuala Lumpur was not the first country in Southeast Asia to mete out corporal punishment.

As the majority of the illegals in Sabah are Filipinos, "it would look as if the Filipinos are being targeted but that is not so," he said.

He said the law also applied to other foreign illegals from countries such as China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Thailand, and even from African countries.

The problem has become "so serious" that parliament passed amendments to the Immigration Act to make whipping mandatory for illegal immigrants and those who brought and harbored them.

Malaysia said the presence of illegals has put tremendous pressure on its capacity to provide basic services, while some also committed serious crimes such as rape and murder.

For many Filipinos and Indonesians, Malaysia is a land of opportunity for the simple reason that economic developments back home and the lack of manpower in Malaysia itself are fueling the mass migration.