MANILA, Philippines - About 249 Filipinos were ferried back to the Philippines from Malaysia's Sabah territory on Wednesday morning.

A radio report quoted Philippine Labor Attache to Malaysia Josephus Jimenez as saying that the Filipino deportees were sent back to the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga through a ferry boat.

The Filipinos had been held at a detention center in Sandakan City in the Eastern Malaysian state of Sabah.

The mass deportation is part of the Malaysian Bureau of Immigration’s plan to rid the nation of around 2,000 Filipinos who had been imprisoned for working in Malaysia without proper documents.

Jimenez said that once the deportation of all the Filipino inmates gets completed, the Malaysian government would then go after overstaying foreign workers who still walk free in Malaysia, most of which are overseas Filipino workers.

Last month, Jimenez appealed to the Malaysian Federal Task Force in charge of detention centers in Malaysia to address the reported “inhumane treatment" of Filipino detainees in the said country.

Aside from congestion problems, the condition of the detention cells where the Filipinos are being kept could also trigger health problems for the people staying in them.

Esteban Conejos Jr, DFA undersecretary for migrant workers’ affairs, earlier said that an average of 300 Filipinos are brought back weekly from Sabah to Zamboanga.

"The average per year (used to be) about 10,000. It is continuing," Conejos said.

There are about 200,000 Filipinos in Malaysia – 9,000 of whom are in peninsular Malaysia. Only three to four thousand Filipinos are working in the country as professionals, according to Conejos. In Sabah, most Filipinos work in plantations, construction sites, trade and services, while some migrate to unite with their families.

In a related development, a separate radio report said that a Malaysian national who was earlier arrested for alleged human trafficking will be presented to Vice President Noli de Castro later in the day.

Presenting the suspected illegal recruiter, identified as one Ong Soo Lian, are Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Esteban Conejos Jr and Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan.

The report said that the arrested Malaysian national has been able to sneak unwitting recruits by using the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport as their exit point. - Mark Merueñas, GMANews.TV

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