Recommendation for Cabinet to replace term 'Lain-lain'

Kuching: The Bumiputera Minorities Technical Committee (BMTC) will submit a recommendation to the Federal Cabinet to replace the term "Lain-lain" race category on all government forms, its co-chairman Datuk Seri Douglas Unggah Embas said Friday. In its place, they are seeking a specific category for non-Muslim natives of Sarawak.

"The recommendation will be submitted to the Cabinet in the next few weeks once the committee's minutes of meeting has been properly done with," he said.

He said, however, that he will not disclose the committee's recommendation before it is brought to the Cabinet. "Suffice to say that we have made a recommendation at our meeting yesterday and it was based on the feedback from the social media, statements from political leaders, Dayak-based Non-Governmental Organisations and Dayak professionals," he said.

Unggah said the move to replace the word "Lain Lain" with the word "Dayak" was purely based on calls from the Dayak community. The

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BMTC is also co-chaired by Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili with Federal Ministers from Sarawak and Sabah as members.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Joseph Entulu Belaun said on Thursday that the committee agreed to use the word "Dayak" to replace "Lain Lain".

Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (SADIA) President Sidi Munan expressed hope that the Federal Government will accept the recommendation. "Let's settle this issue once and for all as it has been dragging on for so many years," he said Friday.

On January 14, following pressure from the public and a massive rally last year, Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem said his state administration will replace the "lain-lain" column with "Sarawak Bumiputera".

On January 21, the Sabah Government similarly decided to scrap the "lain-lain" option in the race column in government forms and replace it with a blank space to allow applicants to state their respective ethnicities.

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The "lain-lain" column in the race category has been a point of contention among Borneo's native races who are mostly from ethnic tribes, with Sabah itself having over 30 ethnic races.

The racial make-up of Sabah and Sarawak is vastly different from that of states in the Malaysian peninsula, which is typically categorised under Malay, Chinese and Indian and the contentious "lain-lain".

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