Surat Terbuka Untuk Charles Santiago: Ahli Parlimen Lorong Tikus

Ahli Parlimen DAP Kawasan Klang ini lebih gemar pentingkan kesejahteraan PATI berbanding keselamatan dan kesejahteraan rakyat Malaysia sendiri

Sebagai rakyat Malaysia yang menjunjung keluhuran perlembagaan dan kedaulatan undang-undang, saya tidak faham kenapa Ahli Parlimen Klang, YB Charles Santiago beriya-iya untuk membela individu yang masuk secara haram ke dalam negara tanpa ada dokumen?

Walaupun saya mengambil kira hak asasi migran sama ada yang berdokumen ataupun tidak untuk melangsungkan kehidupan, saya berpendapat hak asasi rakyat Malaysia untuk dilindungi dari sebarang gejala yang buruk, baik dari aspek sosial, moral, keselamatan mahupun kesihatan. Dengan itu, saya lebih cenderung untuk berpihak dengan Menteri Dalam Negeri serta beratus ribu petugas barisan hadapan agensi-agensi di bawah KDN yang saban hari menghadap makian dan cercaan rakyat Malaysia yang sudah muak dengan perangai migran tanpa dokumen (PATI).

Kenyataan YB Charles Santiago dari DAP yang mempersoalkan ketegasan Menteri Dalam Negeri serta agensi-agensi di bawah naungan Kementerian Dalam Negeri (KDN) dalam menangani isu ini adalah satu kenyataan yang bukan sahaja bodoh, malahan ianya juga satu kenyataan yang tidak patriotik.

Sebagai Ahli Parlimen, bukankah sepatutnya YB Charles Santiago turut bersama menegakkan undang-undang dan mendahulukan kepentingan rakyat Malaysia daripada semua aspek. Bukankah itu sumpah yang YB lafaz semasa menjadi seorang Ahli Parlimen, iaitu berikrar akan taat setia kepada Malaysia serta memelihara, melindungi dan mempertahankan Perlembagaan Persekutuan? Bukankah itu bermakna YB berjanji akan mendaulatkan undang-undang negara yang dibuat di bawah Perlembagaan Persekutuan Malaysia dan bukan Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Rohingya dan sebagainya?

Tidakkah YB Charles Santiago ini tahu bahawa tidak ada negara di dunia ini yang menghalalkan pendatang tanpa izin terutama sekali pendatang ekonomi. Saya cabar YB Charles Santiago untuk namakan satu sahaja negara yang mengalu-alukan kemasukan pendatang asing ke dalam negara mereka secara haram.

Malah, Netherlands yang menduduki tempat pertama dalam senarai negara paling menghormati hak asasi manusia juga telah memperkenalkan Skim Insurans Kebangsaan yang tidak meliputi PATI di negara tersebut. Langkah ini sekaligus menafikan hak PATI di negara tersebut untuk mendapatkan faedah sosial. Netherlands juga mempunyai Linkage Act, 1998: satu Akta yang menyulitkan PATI di sana untuk mendapatkan rawatan di hospital; mereka tidak boleh diberi perlindungan insurans; malah kerajaan Netherlands juga tidak bertanggung jawab di atas kos perubatan mereka.

Di sini, kita telah memperkenalkan program Rekalibrasi Tenaga Kerja sejak bulan November 2020 dan sepatutnya berakhir pada penghujung bulan ini. Kalau mereka ini berdaftar, mereka layak dilindungi di bawah Skim Bencana Kerja Pekerja Asing oleh PERKESO. Sudahlah dia PATI, kita berbaik hati nak jadikan mereka pekerja migran yang sah, lakukan saringan COVID-19 ke atas mereka, tawarkan mereka peluang pekerjaan dengan syarat mereka mendaftar dan membayar kompaun.

Tak cukup dengan itu, kita sediakan pula skim perlindungan di bawah PERKESO lagi yang akan memberi mereka faedah perlindungan. Bukankah itu menandakan bahawa kerajaan Malaysia amat baik hati serta prihatin terhadap mereka?

Sudah tujuh bulan program ini berlangsung, kenapa masih ada yang tidak mahu keluar mendaftar dan lebih gemar ke sana-sini sambil berpotensi menjadi penyebar penyakit berjangkit terutamanya COVID-19?

Kita mempunyai perundangan yang jelas mengenai PATI dan kita perlu menguatkuasakan undang-undang yang telah dibuat.

Sekiranya PATI tidak perlu diambil tindakan undang-undang maka sia-sia sahajalah undang-undang yang dibentangkan di parlimen. Baik kita buka sahaja semua pintu sempadan kita dan benarkan mereka masuk atas nama hak asasi manusia.

Berbalik kepada isu, Menteri Dalam Negeri dah jelaskan, keutamaan vaksinasi adalah terhadap rakyat Malaysia terlebih dahulu.

Persoalannya, selepas rakyat kita divaksinasi, bagaimanakah kita mahu pastikan golongan PATI yang selama ini menyorok di penempatan- penempatan haram ini akan tampil sukarela mendaftar untuk dapatkan vaksin. Tujuh bulan program Rekalibrasi Tenaga Kerja yang menjanjikan perlindungan yang lebih baik buat mereka pun mereka tidak endahkan.

Kalau ikut kebijaksanaan YB Charles Santiago dan 13 lagi Ahli Parlimen Pembangkang yang kononnya berpegang dengan prinsip kemanusiaan, YB-YB ini yakin bahawa mereka akan tampil kehadapan jika Kerajaan tidak ambil tindakan terhadap mereka. Tapi apa jaminannya? Tiada! Air liur sahaja! Talk is cheap, YB, and sorry, but Utopia does not exist.

Saya yakin dalam hal ini rakyat juga setuju dengan Menteri Dalam Negeri bahawa PATI ini tidak akan berani kedepan secara sukarela untuk mendapatkan vaksinasi. Kalau ada pun bilangannya terlalu sedikit.

Apa yang perlu kita lakukan dengan segera ialah dengan mengumpulkan mereka ke satu tempat dan lakukan ujian swab test. Ini hanya boleh dilaksanakan melalui operasi penguatkuasaan PATI secara bersepadu oleh JIM, PDRM, JPN, dan KKM.

Komuniti PATI ini adalah time-bomb. Mereka ini tidak pergi ke klinik jika ada gejala dan tidak buat swabtest walaupun mereka tahu mereka adalah kontak rapat. Dan mereka bergerak tanpa dikesan di kalangan rakya yang begitu cermat menjaga SOP agar tidak dijangkiti.

Mereka ini tiada majikan dan bebas bergaul bersama rakyat tempatan di tempat awam. Tidak wajar mereka diberikan kelonggaran dan tidak diambil tindakan. Itu adalah tindakan tidak berpelembagaan dan tidak bermaruah.

Enough is enough. Sudahlah YB Charles Santiago. Utamakan rakyat Malaysia. Jangan terhegeh-hegeh mahu bela golongan PATI. Bila tiba PRU nanti, mohon YB naik sampan pergi ke laut, rayu undi daripada mereka.

Yang sudah meluat,

Kapten (Bersara) Abdul Rahmat Omar

Rakyat Malaysia

Malaysia’s Efforts To Combat Human Trafficking Recognised

Malaysia has been taken off the US Human Trafficking Watchlist after its position in the watchlist has improved to Tier-2 (pic courtest of Fact Retriever)

Slavery has been around since the beginning of time. Up until the introduction of the English Common Law in the Malay States, those who can no longer afford to pay taxes entered bondage slavery to keep their daily bread. Such was the time when slavery was almost all about labour exploitation.

And then the British brought in workers from Southern China and India to toil the tin mines and rubber plantations respectively.  Other than bringing in opium to keep them happy, Chinese females were also brought in to fulfill their sexual desires.

Today, there are more human slaves in the world than ever before in history. There are an estimated 27 million adults and 13 million children around the world who are victims of human trafficking. (Skinner, E. Benjamin. A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery. New York, NY: Free Press, 2008).  Nearly 80% of human trafficking is for sex, and 19% is for labor exploitation (http://www.ncdsv.org/images/NCADV_HumanTraffickingFacts.pdf ).

Two years ago we were shocked by reports of Malaysia being used as a base for human traffickers with the discovery of 28 camps and 139 graves of trafficked Rohingyas in Wang Kelian.

A forensic policeman transports body bags with human remains found at the site of human trafficking camps in the jungle close the Thailand border after bringing them to a police camp near Wang Kelian in northern Malaysia May 25, 2015. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

Since then the government has pulled out all stops in its efforts to eradicate the menace. Najib Razak even made a personal decision to become more involved in combatting human rights violators, especially in the realm of human trafficking. He instituted a government-wide initiative to consolidate efforts. Working with law enforcement, immigration authorities, the manufacturing and agriculture sectors and NGO’s, the Malaysian government planned and executed a comprehensive effort to combat trafficking at the local and regional levels.

The efforts have since paid off.  The latest US State Department’s Trafficking In Person (TIP) report, Malaysia was elevated from a watch list to “Tier 2”, which represents significant efforts to combat human trafficking.  This is as a result of the Prime Minister driving the efforts to improve in several key areas, which the US has today recognised as achieving.

Not all are thankful that the efforts made by the government, notably Klang MP Charles Santiago who calls the US State Department’s TIP report a ‘farce‘ that is ‘driven by political objectives.’

The Farcical MP

Charles Santiago is the same person who in 2015 asked then-US President Barack Obama NOT to elevate Malaysia’s TIP status from Tier 3.  Nothing good should ever come to Malaysia for as long as it is not he nor his comical colleagues that are in power.

Charles Santiago asking Obama in 2015 not to make Malaysia look good to anyone

This MP is from the very same Pakatan coalition that the US Department of Justice’s suit on 1MDB-related individuals and companies are not politically-motivated because it would hit the Barisan Nasional hard, but argue that the US State Department’s TIP report as politically-driven instead because it does no good to the Pakatan’s aimless struggle.

Making stupid calls over nothing

According to the US TIP report, the Malaysian government conducted 106 risk assessments and ultimately granted six victims work visas and 12 special immigration passes for freedom of movement. An additional 28 victims were approved for freedom of movement. Prosecutions were initiated by the Malaysian government against 175 alleged traffickers, up from 38 initiated the previous year. The government convicted 35 traffickers—18 for labour trafficking and 17 for sex trafficking.  There were 1,558 trafficking victims identified in Malaysia last year and 3,411 cases investigated by the Royal Malaysian Police.

The report added that the Malaysian government demonstrated increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period. During the reporting period, the Malaysian Attorney-General approved and the Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi enforced implementing regulations for the amendments to the anti-trafficking law.

As for the protection of the trafficking victims, the report says that Malaysian officials provided three NGOs with funds to conduct various programs and activities with trafficking shelter residents. They also increased its funding allocation to the Ministry of Women, Family, and Community Development to operate government facilities for trafficking victims.

As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Women, Family, and Community Development maintained seven facilities specifically to house trafficking victims, and the government allocated RM3.06 million (USD682,270) to open three new trafficking shelters.

With this elevation, Malaysia is now a regional leader in combatting human trafficking.  Najib Razak will be working with regional countries, in particular the ASEAN nations,  that are lagging behind, and will support efforts by Myanmar, Laos and Thailand to solve their trafficking problems.

While we should all be proud of this achievement, we should spare no effort to eradicate this inhumane trade.  However, credit should be given where credit is due, and politicising issues such as this shows how selfish one can be putting his/her agenda above the nation’s.

Law Degree From SJK (T) Simpang Lima, Klang

Yes, it seems possible to get a law degree from a Tamil elementary school in Klang. I came to this conclusion after reading the Member of Parliament of Klang’s claim that the Menteri Besar of Selangor is a caretaker Menteri Besar and therefore cannot sign the water deal on behalf of the Selangor State Government.

Since when is the current Menteri Besar a caretaker? When was the Dewan dissolved? I hope Charles Santiago can provide a Selangor rakyat such as I with the correct references from the Selangor State Constitution that legally implies Khalid Ibrahim is a caretaker Menteri Besar.

Until then, whatever he spews out of his ugly face is a product of his cow-shit for brain.

Read what the MB had to say about Charles Santiago’s bullshit