Kota Kinabalu: Author and self-publisher of “Population Explosion and Demographic Shift in Sabah”, Datuk Dr Chong Eng Leong said his book cover graphics of Malaya “handling” a leash on East Malaysia when asked during the question-and-answer session at a talk organised by NGO Sabar at the KK Wetlands Ramsar Site Office premises on Sunday.
“I was advised to remove the ‘leash’ from the picture,” Dr Chong said during his presentation entitled “Demographic Shift in Sabah since 1963”, but did not do so. His publisher in Kolombong was raided over the publication of his first book in 2009, prior to the 2010 census exercise.
He said somehow the authorities got wind of this and tried to stop the printing of his book that also documented the 1,552 per cent increase in a certain population in Sabah from 1970 until 2000.
Subsequently the numbers were doctored or manipulatively adjusted in subsequent census reports to reduce the statistics by shifting the increase to the Bumiputra category.
However, he said the previous Federal government did not change or could not doctor hospital records, even when they adjust their census statistics. Dr Chong deemed such statistical manipulation as “Statistical ethnic cleaning” in Sabah.
“Sabah used to be two-third of Sarawak’s population in the 1960s.
“Today, Sarawak’s population is two-third that of Sabah’s population.” He opined that it was certain Malayan leaders who engineered the “Population Explosion and Demographic Shift in Sabah” as his book was titled.
“The KDM communities were more than half of the total indigenous people in North Borneo in 1960. The KDM communities were less than one-third of total Bumiputras in Sabah in 2020.”
He detailed the previous Federal Government’s use of Article 14, Project IC, Sijil Akuan, late registration of birth, and Article 30 to grant citizenship to foreigners.
Daily Express news reports were displayed on slides to prove his points – from such as “Filipino: I obtained IC from a project” to “ICs issued legally: Dr M”.
Dr Chong opined that political will is needed to solve this issue, despite all the documented evidence compiled by the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) in the past, in which he also testified.
He noted that on March 27, Daily Express again reported the figure of 136,055 known Filipino refugees in Sabah.
Which was the same figure parroted in past years without any changes which shows there is no factual up-to-date knowledge of the population of non-Malaysian migrant in Sabah.
“And also written answers given by the PM Department in Parliament in November 2020 to March 2024, to written questions by MP.”
In reply to the leash question, Dr Chong said, “The leash is loosening.”
This is evident over East Malaysia’s assertiveness to get their Malaysia partnership status reinstated under Article 1 of the Constitution, devolution in education and health ministries control, tourism licences, call for the increase of MP seats for East Malaysia and Sabah’s claim for its 40 per cent revenue share.
He also said the leash was to reflect the downgrade constitutional amendment of Articles 1 and 46 to make Sabah 12th and Sarawak 13th states, their loss of the continental shelf with the petroleum resources, the unconstitutional Project IC/Mahathir, etc, the choice of Chief Ministers of East Malaysia subject to Federal choice, assistance to Palestinians over poor rural East Malaysia natives.
