Pinoy illegals in Malaysia hiding

A crackdown on illegal aliens in Malaysia had forced many undocumented Filipinos to go underground and complicated the efforts of the Philippine government to bring them home, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said yesterday.

In an interview at the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Jose Brillantes said only a fraction of the over 200,000 undocumented Filipinos in Malaysia had chosen to take advantage of an announcement last Tuesday of a suspension in the crackdown.

Brillantes said the Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur had so far processed only around 18,000 Filipinos.

But he said the figure was already an improvement over the number of Filipinos that were repatriated after a similar crackdown in 2002.

"We feel that we are able to penetrate the market. The last few days have been very encouraging," he said.

Brillantes said the "porous" border between Mindanao and the Malaysian province of Sabah makes it easy for undocumented Filipinos to enter Malaysia.

"People keep crisscrossing that particular border since time immemorial," he said.

Many Filipinos live and work in Sabah and already consider themselves Malaysians.

Malaysia suspended its nationwide crackdown on undocumented workers last Tuesday to give the governments of the Philippines and Indonesia more time to process the voluntary repatriation of their nationals.

The suspension is the third granted by the Malaysian government since last year. The first was in November, followed by another in December.

Brillantes said he is hopeful the suspension would lead to an extension of an amnesty program for illegal aliens.

But he said the Philippine government had augmented its teams in Sabah to facilitate the repatriation of Filipinos.

He said Filipinos who avail of the voluntary program will be granted safe passage and provided temporary accommodation.