HALAW!

 

Halaw is a Bahasa Maleyo word that means ‘driven away’.  Malaysian authorities popularized the lalbel when they deport ‘Filipinos’ from Sabah for lack of proper documents to continue their stay in the place.  There are several kinds of ‘deportees’ from Sabah.

 

The first type of deportees refer to the former residents of the Archipelago of Sulu and Tawi Tawi who moved to Sabah for safety during the early 1970’s because of the fighting between the government troops and the Moro National Liberation Front.  They settled in the city of Sandakan, and in surrounding towns and villages.  They found refuge in Sabah during the time of Tun Mustapha, former Sabah Chief Minister and a Tausug. Strictly speaking, they remained ‘illegals’, though others managed to secure their IC or identity cards to allow their continued stay and work in Sabah. 

 

The IC holders have either acquired Philippine passports or Malaysian passports, especially the children born in Sabah.  The non-IC holders neither have Philippine passports nor Malaysian passports. They are ‘illegals’ and so are their children.  As ‘illegals’, they have no access to basic social services including health and education.  These so called ‘illegals’ are subjects to deportation when caught during police operations.  They are the HALAWS!

 

The second type refer to the countless ‘workers’  in the plantation, restaurants and hotels.  Most of them are from the Archipelagos of Sulu and Tawi Tawi while others are from mainland Mindanao. They, too, have NO papers or identity cards and they come by speed boats that land in some remote coastal town of Sabah.  From there, they move onward to Sandakan or to one of the many rubber or African Palm plantations.  They find work through the network of kinship and they easily mix with the ‘natives’. However, when the police conduct operations against the ‘illegals’, they too are rounded and turned over to Immigration for deportation.

 

The third type refer to ‘trafficked persons’  usually women and minors.  This is the modern type of slavery. The hapless victims end up ‘for sale’ in a very lucrative market of prostitution. Some end in Kota Kinabalo, others are sold in Brunei, still others are traded in Singapore and in some cities in Europe and Latin America.  This third type is most organized, because it is both market and demand driven!  According to some grapevine sources, the going price for each trafficked person goes as much as 100,000.00 pesos per head depending on the ‘state of the merchandise’.

 

I recently went through the backdoor route simply to observe the first and the second types. The boat ride from Zamboanga to Sandakan took about 22 hours.  It was the time when the people who performed the Muslim Hajj (pilgrimage) were on their way home.  These pilgrims are holders of both Philippine passports and ICs.  The newly arrived hajjis from Sabah are mostly in their sixties and they have been residing in Sabah since the early seventies.

 

While in Sandakan and Semporana, I met a lot of ‘islanders’ (Tabawan, Pangutaran, Simunul, Ungus Matata, Mapuns, Siasi and Taganak) who are working in restaurants and hotels. And there are many more in the plantations. They are mostly young people – in their twenties who seek jobs in Sabah.   They earn monthly salaries ranging from 350 to 500 Malaysian Ringits (5,000 to 7,000 pesos with two meals) but working from 10 to 12 hours a day. Most of these young people are high school graduates while others are only elementary graduates.  They learn Bahasa but among themselves they either speak Tausug or Sama.

 

These people have no legal papers – no passports and no ICs either.  When caught by the police in their ‘on and off’ raids, they are turned over to immigration for deportation as HALAW! 

 

The people cannot comprehend why on earth they become HALAW in Sabah. Their ancestors moved from the islands to Sabah with no worry about any legal papers or about border crossing.  Moreover, they continue to believe that Sabah is part of the Sultanate of Sulu.  

 

And this has some clear legal basis. They refer to the 1939 judgment of Chief Justice C.F.C. Makaskie of the High Court of North Borneo that had handed ownership of North Borneo to the heirs of the Sultanate of Sulu prior to the formation of Malaysian federation in 1963. The judgment in the civil suit filed by the late Hadji Piandao and eight other heirs of the Sultan of Sulu, including the famous Putlih (Princess) Tarhata Kiram, upheld the validity of the claim of the heirs over Sabah.

 

The word HALAW has become even more popular with the critically acclaimed Filipino Indie Film also with the same title in 2010. The film dramatizes how the poor inhabitants of the islands through this backdoor border crossing are drawn into the world of modern day slavery.