Friday, March 30, 2012

Stateless children of Filipino parentage need help

Children of Filipino parentage born in Sabah, Malaysia could have hard time in getting birth certificates or do not have birth certificates at all. They are stateless children and they need help.

This writer was in Kota Kinabalu (KK) recently, while walking in the corridors of the busy business center of KK, a lass in checkered blouse and denim pant shouted near us “rokok, rokok, beli lah kamu rokok” (cigarette, cigarette, buy cigarette) as she waves packs of Indonesian and Philippine smuggled cigarettes to induce passers- by to buy her stuff in downtown KK, Sabah.

She is Ula Matusin, 10 year old girl of Filipino parentage from Basilan. I waved my hand signaling her to come closer to me and asked a pack of Suria. “Tiga ringgit (RM 3.00), she said in Malay.

I stared at her as I was amazed by her fluency of her second language though she has never gone to any school, she claimed. But Ula said she was forced into an early childhood labor because she could not go to school. She was denied entrance in all KK’s sekolah rendah (primary school) for having no birth certificate although she was born in Sabah. She is a stateless child.

Ula is not alone, hundreds or even more stateless children are like her in the different districts of Sabah, Malaysia. However, they do not exist even in the country of their birth much more in the country of their parent’s origin.

“I did like to go to school and want to learn,” she said. “I also have my ambition. I want to become a nurse someday but it is unfortunate I cannot see this dream to happen. My parents are illegal immigrants so I could not get a birth certificate that is a requirement for enrollment here,” she stressed.

Ula was not alone peddling illegal stuff like smuggled cigarettes; there were many boys and girls her age, and like her, are street kids in many places of the urban cities of Sabah, though born here but do not have birth certificates or any documentation to prove their nationality.

Living in legal midpoint, they are unable to access government services such as health and education or return lawfully to their parents’ countries.
The children that face days without access to school tend to grow up as child laborers in constructions and plantations or wander the streets where they are exposed to petty crimes, drugs, glue sniffing, and child abuse. If they are ill, they can only seek treatment at expensive private clinics, not at government hospitals.

These children’s predispositions and tendencies are primarily caused by being unjustifiably stateless.

Moreover, no one should anymore try to fault find.

What is needed to be done is how to extricate these stateless children from the bondage of illiteracy and help bring to them a non-formal education process and establish it in the cities of their stay.

Teaching our national language will inculcate and maintain their sense of nationalism as Filipinos, on the grounds of their biological parentage, vis-à-vis the literacy program sponsored by our national government that will make them read and write.

On the other hand, Liew Vui Keong, deputy minister in the prime minister’s department and a member of parliament for Sandakan constituency in Sabah, said that both host countries and countries of origin would have to work together to give some form of recognition to the stateless children and their parents.

“We cannot deny the fact that they’re already here,” he said. “We cannot just kick them out because where do they go? We cannot simply deny them of their rights to stay in a place where they were born,” Liew was quoted as saying in an interview by newsmen.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Sahali re-evaluates Project 100 RUBIES

Vice Governor Ruby Sahali presided a meeting with the midwives of the Project 100 RUBIES on Wednesday to re-evaluate the output of the project and the performance of these health personnel involved in the implementation.

The meeting, according to the Vice Governor, was to determine whether the services of the 100 midwives or RUBIES are still deemed necessary.

She said their (RUBIES) contract of service ended last December 2011 and need renewal depending on the positive output of their performance.

“This is why we have this meeting in order to assess the performance and output of the project base from their achievements as a requirement for renewal,” Vice Governor Sahali stressed.

After the assessment was made, the vice governor decided to allow the continuance of service of the midwives saying that their services are deemed necessary in order to pursue the continuity of the prime objectives of the project.

Named after the Vice Governor herself, the Project 100 RUBIES was initiated by the provincial government in 2010, which hired 100 midwives to augment the 48 regular midwives of the Integrated Public Health Office (IPHO).

The project was aimed at reaching undeserved barangays through initiatives for enhancement of services to curb maternal, infant and child deaths in Tawi-Tawi by giving appropriate and timely health care interventions to save the lives of mothers and children.

Both Governor Sadikul Sahali and Vice Governor Ruby Sahali believed that “No mother should die giving life.”

The vice governor said that the 100 RUBIES were deployed to municipalities that have no sufficient health personnel and with poor health indices and relatively poor population of which the IPHO oversees its implementation.

Meanwhile, Dr. Sukarno Asri, IPHO chief said that project 100 RUBIES has a good impact to the people especially those in areas that have less health personnel.

He said the project has helped a lot in preventing maternal and infant mortality.

He revealed that DOH-ARMM has patterned its Midwife in Every Community in ARMM (MECA) program from the concept of the Project 100 RUBIES of the provincial government.

Aside from the provincial government and the IPHO’s support, the project is also supported by USAID-SHIELD, UNFPA, Global Fund, and the European Commission.