RP exec denies report that Sabah deportees ate food with maggots

MANILA, Philippines - A Philippine Embassy official denied reports that Filipino deportees in Sabah were beaten repeatedly by Malaysian authorities and were given food with maggots.

“We have not received such reports," Consul General Renato Villa told GMANews.TV in an interview on Tuesday.

According to Villa, an eight-member consular team deployed in Kota Kinabalu (Sabah’s capital) did not mention anything about Filipino deportees being mistreated by Malaysian authorities.

“They only complained about the cramped deportation cells," he added.

Villa was reacting to an earlier report by the Fact-Finding Committee on Sabah Deportees which said that Malaysia committed serious human rights offenses to Filipino deportees.

Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan said they uncovered the abuses after the fact-finding committee held an inquiry in August in Sabah, where authorities have been rounding up illegal immigrants and undocumented workers.

She said thousands of Filipinos, including women and children, are still languishing in Malaysian jails and suffering from inhumane conditions and had been deprived of their basic rights.

Villa said the purging of illegal migrants in Sabah would continue until yearend despite an amnesty offered by the government there to some 70,000 foreign workers who are applying for regularization.

Gina Esguerra of Migrante’s Migrants Assistance Committee said a number of the deported Filipinos they interviewed claimed they were treated inhumanely in Malaysian holding centers.

“Hindi maganda ang pagkain, inuuod na (The food was deplorable, it already had maggots in it)," Esguerra told GMANews.TV in a phone interview.

Since 2002, Malaysia had imposed a strict policy against immigrants in the northernmost part of its territory in Borneo Island. Most of the Filipino deportees were ferried to Zamboanga City from Sandakan in Malaysia.

Philippine Ambassador to Malaysia Victoriano Lecaros said Filipinos are temporarily detained in two deportation centers in Pawa and Mengatal in Sabah.

The Philippines has a standing claim over Sabah. However, since 1989, the Philippine government has failed to push through with its claim over Sabah because it prioritized the country’s economic and security relations with Malaysia. - GMANews.TV

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