Indonesians make most of porous Philippine border

Indonesians make most of porous Philippine border

Manny Mogato
Reuters/Glan, Philippines

From behind a pair of binoculars that have seen far better days,
Amancio Wagwag searches the sea for intruders.

There is no shortage of activity.

For the next 12 hours, the 30-year-old skipper of a Coast
Guard gunboat will play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with
hundreds of boats shuttling between North Sulawesi in eastern
Indonesia and Mindanao in the southern Philippines.

But if a fruitless first three months on the job are anything
to go by, his chances of making an arrest are slim.

"This is a very lonely and difficult job," Wagwag told a guest
on his small, noisy boat, loaded with two machine guns and three
other crew members.

"We only have one gunboat patrolling a 160-km long coastline
and our old boat is no match for high-speed outriggers carrying
contraband, including illegal entrants, from Indonesia."

Complicating the situation are the thousands of Indonesians
who have migrated to the southern Philippines, and many go back
and forth across the water border with virtual impunity.

Just about anything that can be bought cheaply in Indonesia is
smuggled into Mindanao, from pirated DVDs to ceramic floor tiles
and even exotic birds. More worryingly for Wagwag, pirates also
sail these seas and they are often better armed and equipped than
the coast guards.

These days, thinly stretched Philippine security forces are
also under pressure to keep a watchful eye on a more deadly
export -- militants from Indonesia.

The links between Mindanao and Southeast Asian militant group
Jamaah Islamiyah were highlighted once more by reports that one
of the two main suspects in the recent bombing outside the
Australian embassy in Jakarta had trained on the island.

Security officials believe hundreds of Jamaah Islamiyah
operatives have used Mindanao as a training base and refuge,
drawn by its lawless jungles and mountains home to four separate
Muslim rebel groups.

Tracking down the militants has been made more difficult by
their apparent links with elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front, the Philippines' main Muslim rebel group.

But they are also able to blend in with thousands of
Indonesians who have made Mindanao their home.

Officials estimate there are between 10,000 and 15,000
Indonesians in Mindanao, most of them concentrated in islands off
the coast, villages around cities such as General Santos and
Davao, and the plains of South Cotabato.

More than 5,000 cast their votes in the first round of
Indonesian presidential elections in July although only a handful
of Indonesian residents are legal under Philippine law.

Indonesia has been the source of cheap farm labor since the
1920s when illegal migrants from North Sulawesi worked in coconut
plantation, rice mills and as servants.

Later, many were employed in the tuna industry.

The island, home to the poorest provinces in the Philippines,
is viewed as an economic promised land by Indonesians from remote
parts of North Sulawesi. Many are Christians, helping their
assimilation into the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines.

"Life is much, much better here," said Mamasi Mendumba, who
left his home in Sangir island off North Sulawesi in 1966 after a
powerful volcanic eruption.

"We're better off here because it's easy to find a job and the
pay is much higher than in Indonesia."

For those with an entrepreneurial spirit, the opportunities
are abundant.

Numerous moves over the years to get the Indonesians to
register or send them home have failed.

Immigration officer Ernesto Mercado said the government had no
clear policy on how to deal with the growing number of
undocumented Indonesians.

"These people have nowhere to go home in Indonesia," he said.
"They know only one home -- that's here in Mindanao."