228 Filipino deportees arrive from Malaysia

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - A total of 228 more Filipino deportees from Malaysia arrived Thursday night in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, officials said.

The deportees were immediately ushered into relief sites in Bongao by government social workers and employees of the Tawi-Tawi provincial government.

Hadja Lebia Amlih, a senior provincial staff of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said 163 of the new deportees are adults, while 65 others are minors, now undergoing mandatory screening and documentary procedures.

The latest batch of deportees were ferried from Sabah to Tawi-Tawi by the M/V MidEast, which arrived at the Bongao Port almost midnight Thursday. 

The office of Tawi-Tawi Gov. Nurbert Sahali and the ARMM’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team (HEART) have provided them with initial cereal rations and other non-food relief supplies and hygiene kits.

The ARMM’s executive secretary, lawyer Laisa Alamia, said the regional government will facilitate the return of the deportees, mostly from the Malaysian island state Sabah, to their places of origin.

The Malaysian government has deported 4, 806 undocumented Filipinos from January 9 to August 12 this year alone. Some 5,000 undocumented Filipinos in Malaysia were deported from early 2013 to December of the same year.  

Alamia said the Malaysian government’s crackdown on illegal aliens does not single out only Filipinos. She said undocumented foreigners from other countries have also been sent home.

Alamia, who is helping ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman oversee the operations of HEART, said they are thankful to the governor of Tawi-Tawi, and his older sibling, Rep. Ruby Sahali, for helping attend to the needs of the deportees.