The drama of the alleged rape of a 13-year-old in the Sabah immigration detention centre has all the ingredients of an unfolding major scandal for the government whose attempts so far at damage control have been pathetic and promise to escalate the embarrassment further.

The spotlight of public attention has almost immediately turned on the state of detention centres and deportation camps. Questions will be asked regarding how bad conditions are in these places, and the extent to which law enforcement authorities abuse power by seizing advantage of the vulnerable position of illegal immigrants.

To make matters worse, Malaysia no longer has sole control of the investigations and disclosure for purposes of damage control. Philippine authorities too are involved in the investigations, and they will have no qualms at disclosure.

According to Tenaganita director Irene Fernandez, "the Philippine non-government organisation Migrante International's report claimed that at least seven policemen in Tawau had made Filipinas their sex slaves. Their leader is a policeman identified as Azri. The women were taken out of the detention cell and taken to a separate room where they were raped or made into sex slaves by police personnel," she said, adding that some women were given food as 'compensation' (see Suhakam, police to investigate rape claims in Sabah).

When a 13-year-old was allegedly made to have sex with policemen, it matters not whether she dispensed her sexual favours freely or under duress. For even in the former case, the law would have imputed the lack of consent on her part taking into consideration her tender age, and the crime of statutory rape would have been committed.

The scandal here is that where police personnel are expected to enforce and uphold the laws, they have, if the allegations are proven, broken them instead, for which, image-wise, the Home Ministry would be held accountable.

Far from showing the proper contrition for such allegations to have surfaced — that have caused a diplomatic furore between two Asean countries that were otherwise in friendly relations — and demonstrating a resolve to get to the bottom of things and punish the black sheep in the Sabah police force implicated, Home Ministry parliamentary secretary Abu Zahar Isnin's first response in answering a supplementary question from Mohd Ali Hassan (BN-Tebrau) on the government's reaction if the Philippines refused to apologise was, "We (the Malaysian authorities) have investigated and found that the girl is not of good character" (see Allegedly raped girl 'is not of good character', says Home Ministry).

What a boo-boo! It was as if to imply that not having a "good character" — whatever that means — forfeits one's right to be treated humanely and provides the licence to be abused, even sexually.

Abu Zahar said he meant "no malice in his remarks". He said "I wasn't making a prejudiced assumption. I had read it in the newspapers, I think it was the New Straits Times, which got it from a Philippine source".

If no malice was meant, if it were not the intent to mitigate the circumstances of abuse, what then was the purpose or relevance of volunteering that piece of information in response to an enquiry as to what was to be done if the Philippine authorities refused to apologise?

It was just about the most politically insensitive and incorrect statement to stir the hornet's nest in the presence of women members of Parliament. It promised to escalate rather than downplay the scandal. Ops Nyah II last August is fast becoming "Oops Ayah!" this October.

To the intent of damage control, more than one government minister have sought to deflect the scandal by blaming the Philippine authorities for making a "false accusation" of a Filipina being sexually abused in Malaysian detention camps when it was actually a Malaysian national involved.

This is another big boo-boo: for would such a false accusation have arisen in the first place from the Philippines if the authorities in Sabah had not, in their infinite ineptness, deported our own Malaysian national?

This immediately turns the spotlight unto these authorities regarding how they rounded up and screened illegal immigrants from those who were not.

If the thoroughness of this screening process is now held in question, it raises the immediate issue of how many other Malaysian nationals besides the 13-year-old minor have been wrongly deported as illegal immigrants, and conversely how many illegal immigrants are wrongly allowed to remain behind as nationals!

At the end of day, public accountability by those in authority will only be possible if, a priori, there were competence, standards and meritocracy in those recruited to carry out public duties. Otherwise, not only will such scandals periodically break out but efforts to exercise damage control over them as well may result in damage aggravation instead, as clearly demonstrated in the case under discussion.