The massive influx of foreigners has seriously upset the demography of Sabah, forcing many ethnic minorities in the state to become "refugees in their own land", claimed a ruling party leader.

The state's "extraordinary" increase in population - as reflected in the annual growth at the district level - went up from 1.16% to 10.54% in the past two decades, said Dr Chong Eng Leong, a Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) supreme council member and former senator.

He said the annual population increase at the national level was 2.5%.

To illustrate his point, Chong, a Sabah Medical Centre consultant surgeon, gave a few examples. Foreigners, he said, made up 75% of the population in Kinabatangan, 54% in Kunak and 36% in Beluran.

He accused the powers-that-be of having a "hidden agenda" in condoning unchecked immigration of foreigners, mostly Muslims from southern Philippines, into the state.

"The central government obviously wants political control over Sabah by having these new bumiputeras registered as voters," he told members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity at a public hearing in Kota Kinabalu last Thursday.

Chong dropped a bombshell at the hearing where he told the committee about a secret plan - codenamed Project Mahathir - to pad the electoral rolls with foreigners who were fraudulently given identity cards.

"Are the powers-that-be prepared to sacrifice national integrity and sovereignty for political convenience?" he asked.

Outnumbered two to one

Chong recalled that when Sabahans did not agree to the erosion of their remaining rights under the 20-point agreement when Malaysia was formed, they were branded as "parochial".

"But was that more threatening to the survival of the nation than allowing illegal aliens to reside in Sabah, (and be) given citizenship through the backdoor and registered as voters?" he asked.

There are an estimated 1.75 million foreigners in Sabah, including those in possession of Project Mahathir's ICs.

Given that the state's population, according to official statistics, was 2.6 million in 2000, foreigners now outnumber the locals by two to one.

"If Sabah's rate of population increase was the same as Sarawak's, then Sabah should have only 1.5 million population today," Chong argued. It would mean Sabah having more than a million fewer people.

Chong said that the state's population increased by 363% from 648,693 in 1970 to "about three million" in 2005, compared to Sarawak's 135% from 976,269 to 2.3 million.

"The new 'bumis' realise that our government is granting them citizenship status through the backdoor, and this encourages more influx of illegal immigants into Sabah, or they would come in with valid papers but destroy them once they expired," Chong said.

"They come in with the open understanding that they too would one day be granted similar status."

Federal leaders 'insensitive'

According to the Philippines embassy in Malaysian, there are about 500,000 Filipinos residing illegally in Sabah, while the Indonesian Consul-General for Sabah and Sarawak has estimated 250,000 illegal Indonesians in the state.

The Malaysian government has, on the other hand, given the figure of 100,000 illegals.

But former Sabah chief minister Bernard Dompok - who chairs the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity - stated that the numbers are closer to 600,000, based on information from the National Security Division of the Prime Minister's Department.

Chong said that despite an existing government's policy of not allowing wives and children of foreign workers to enter the country, "yet we find so many of these dependants here, so much so that the deputy prime minister agreed to the visiting Indonesian vice-president's request two months ago to build schools in plantation areas for the children of their nationals to attend."

He lamented that the Philippine government immediately requested the same for their nationals held at the detention centres. "Our home minister welcomed the request."

According to Chong, this "hurt the feelings" of Sabahans "as if the federal leaders are insensitive to our predicament..."

"If we look at our rural areas, there are places where needy interior kids cannot attend school because of lack of schools, like in Kampung Kinadaan in Sugut.

"I say it again: Kera hutan disusui, anak di rumah mati kelaparan." (we give more attention to outsiders than to our own)."