fun fact: Population of SABAH 3 Million
Filipinos in SABAH 800k
Foreigners in SABAH 1.7 million
The Sulu Sultanate people should have focused on highlighting the humanitarian aspects of the Filipinos plight in sabah. In their simplistic quest to get a higher rent and their inadequacy in taking the moral high ground they have all but lost their cause.
If the sultanate chose to protect and demand rights for the 800k Filipinos in Sabah who have been lived in a state of uncertainty for decades.
If the sultanate only went beyond themselves and called for support from the international community in brokering a settlement that would not create 800,000 nation-less people who have known no home except Sabah.
If they used social media to shine a light on the indignities suffered by people whose illegal status creates a halo of distrust, fear, insurity and even enmity towards the forces of a government who do not recognize them and a government that cannot take care of them.
And yet for us to be called better men or even good people we must not be silent on the plight of people who believe hunger awaits them in the country we proudly call out own. To accept this judgement on the land we have chosen as our home and still fight for recognition for our lost countrymen is the only moral thing we can do.
MANILA: The majority, if not all, of the 800,000 Filipinos based in Sabah may be sent back to the Philippines on the premise that they had acquired their Malaysian citizenship illegally over the past 20 years under a controversial systematic granting of citizenship to foreigners dubbed Project IC (identity cards).
Project IC, which is blamed on former Malaysian prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad, was said to be among the factors that led followers of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III to “invade” Sabah in February. Most of the Filipinos who benefited from the project in the past are Tausugs from the nearby islands of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.
from : http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2013/03/11/800000-filipinos-may-be-sent-home/