Sabah compiles master list of Pinoy refugees - report

More than 30 years after persecuted Filipinos landed there to seek refuge, authorities in Sabah have finally started work on compiling a master list of the refugees. The Borneo Bulletin reported Sunday that authorities have started crosschecking government and immigration records regarding the Filipino refugees. It said that so far, the documents of more than 6,000 people had been checked but only 485 were verified to be Filipino refugees. State secretary Datuk K.Y. Mustafa said the refugees who did not get IMM-13 immigration documents may finally do so with this latest exercise, provided they could prove their status. Mustafa said the state cabinet meeting last Wednesday tackled the matter of various refugee settlements in the state. “There may be those who want to take advantage of the situation but we have our list to verify the documents they produced," he said. Authorities regard as refugees Muslims from the southern part of the Philippines. The first Filipino refugees who landed in Sabah in the 1970s were issued temporary identification receipts through the Chief Minister’s Department of Settlement, State Internal Affairs and Research Unit. Between 1976 and 1985, the registration process was conducted in phases and even the receipts issued were not the same. In the early 1990s, the Prime Minister’s Department Federal Special Task Force registered 50,000 to 60,000 refugees and issued them IMM-13 immigration documents. Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department Datuk Nasir Sakaran had said last Tuesday that there were 72,000 refugees issued with four different types of documents by the state government between 1976 and 1985. Nasir said the initiative, which started on June 5, is a joint program of the Chief Minister’s Department, Immigration department, National Registration Department, police and Federal Special Task Force. - GMANews.TV