Navy ships due today with 600 Filipino deportees from Malaysia

About 600 Filipinos aboard a Philippine Navy ship are expected to arrive today from Sandakan, Malaysia after they surrendered voluntarily ahead of a crackdown on illegal aliens.

According to a Navy statement, the BRP Bacolod City is expected to arrive in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, around 9 a.m.

Upon arriving there, they will be assisted by government personnel in returning to their respective hometowns.

A second vessel, the BRP Dagupan City, will ferry another 600 returnees also to Bongao tomorrow.

Both vessels (not the BRP San Juan and BRP EDSA Dos of the Philippine Coast Guard as earlier reported) were sent last week to Sandakan, Sabah, to help ferry over 300,000 Filipinos who were working illegally in that Malaysian state.

Meanwhile, only those certified fit to travel by Malaysian authorities would be allowed to board the vessels, the Philippine Navy yesterday said.

However, the "final decision of whether or not to accept deportees will come from the Filipino medical officers aboard the Navy vessels," the Navy said.

The decision was made after two infants – both less than a year old – died last week of broncho-pneumonia and severe dehydration as their parents awaited repatriation.

One of the infants died aboard one of the Navy vessels, while the other died in a Sandakan detention center.

Their deaths prompted a "visibly upset" Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople to order Philippine government personnel in Sandakan to make sure that the Filipino returnees – especially the infirm, women and children – are fit to make the trip home.

Many of the women and children were suffering from various ailments caused mainly by malnutrition.

Large numbers of Filipinos who were living illegally in Malaysia have been deported in recent weeks after Kuala Lumpur imposed tough laws where anyone found guilty of illegal entry or harboring illegal immigrants may face a mandatory six-month imprisonment and possibly up to six strokes of the cane. Illegal aliens have until Saturday to surrender voluntarily.

President Arroyo had earlier asked Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Mahathir that the illegal immigrants who surrendered voluntarily be accorded humane treatment.

Poverty, low wages or lack of jobs force hundreds of Filipinos to leave the country for jobs abroad each month, according to government statistics.

Over four million are working overseas. The number of Filipinos staying illegally in other countries, however, is unknown. Most of them risk abuse because of their illegal status.

Because of the Philippines’ porous border with Malaysia, large numbers of Filipinos sneak into Sabah to seek better jobs there.

Some of them – those who can afford it – use fake or tampered Philippine passports, according to Benjamin Kalaw, chief of the Bureau of Immigration’s legal division.

About 3,000 fake or tampered passports were confiscated by authorities in Zamboanga in the past days from Filipinos returning from Sabah, Kalaw said.

Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo said 600 holders of fake or tampered passports would be criminally charged of violating the passport law.

So far, only 2,000 returnees were found to have valid travel documents, but they surrendered nevertheless because they were overstaying.

Authorities on both sides of the border have previously tightened security as part of joint efforts to combat terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States almost a year ago.

Philippine officials earlier expressed concern that foreign terrorists might try to use the Filipino returnees as cover and slip into the country.

In April, a suspected Indonesian terrorist, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozie, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for possessing over a ton of explosives stashed in a backyard in General Santos City.

Al-Ghozie also drew another 12-year prison sentence for possessing two fake Philippine passports which authorities said was part of a terrorist scheme.

Intelligence officials said al-Ghozie was a member of a terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiyah, linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.— With Rudy Santos