Philippine workers head home as team checks camps<\/p>\n
Jalil Hamid
\nReuters
\nSandakan, East Malaysia<\/p>\n
Mothers with babies and men laden with bags crowded onto a
\nPhilippine navy ship on Tuesday as a Philippine team investigated
\nreports several infants had died in Malaysian camps for illegal
\nworkers.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of illegal workers from the Philippines prepared to
\nsail for home from Malaysia's Sandakan port on the northeast
\ncoast of Borneo island, the latest of tens of thousands of
\nFilipinos to leave Malaysia since the launch of a crackdown.<\/p>\n
Relations between Malaysia and its neighbors the Philippines
\nand Indonesia have soured since Kuala Lumpur's policy of caning
\nillegal workers became law on Aug.1, spurring the exodus as well
\nas reports of hardship.<\/p>\n
A Philippine team led by a presidential adviser criss-crossed
\nthe Malaysian state looking at conditions in detention camps
\nwhere Manila officials say three Filipino children have died from
\nmalnutrition and dehydration.<\/p>\n
The delegation met Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Kuala
\nLumpur and Sabah Chief Minister Chong Kah Kiat in the state
\ncapital Kota Kinabalu.<\/p>\n
\"What they told us officially is, if there are abuses
\ncommitted by their people, provided we can identify (them), they
\nare going to punish them,\" the team's leader, presidential
\nadviser for Philippine Muslims, Nur Jaafar, told reporters.<\/p>\n
But he said it was important not to dwell on problems but
\ninstead find ways of improving the lot of those being sent home.
\n\"We have to adopt a system to improve the deportation process.
\nIt's no use to cry over spilt milk.\"<\/p>\n
Demonstrators in Manila and Jakarta have denounced Malaysia
\nand burnt its flags in recent days although the Philippine and
\nIndonesian governments have played down the row.<\/p>\n
On Sandakan dock Filipina housewife Annabel Galeo, 34,
\nprepared to board the PRB Bacolod City with two toddlers in tow.
\n\"I want to go home because I want to apply for a new passport.
\nThen I want to come back,\" she said.<\/p>\n
The ship cast off for the southern Philippines Tawitawi island
\ngroup late on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
About 60,000 Filipino refugees fled fighting in the southern
\nPhilippines in the 1970s and many of them settled down, marrying
\ninto the community. Over the years many more have followed.<\/p>\n
Sabah politicians gave many of the migrants real or fake
\nidentification cards to boost their vote, while the newcomers did
\nthe poorly paid jobs shunned by locals in forestry, oil palm
\nplantations and farming.<\/p>\n
About 70,000 of the estimated half a million Philippine
\ncitizens in Malaysia have gone home since February.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Philippines said on Tuesday it was looking into
\na newspaper report that Malaysian police had sexually abused some
\nFilipino Christian women detained on Sabah island.<\/p>\n
The Philippine Daily Inquirer said on Tuesday the incidents in
\nTawau were reported by two Filipinos it interviewed after they
\nwere expelled from Malaysia recently in the wake of that
\ncountry's crackdown on illegal immigrants.<\/p>",
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