Jose Rizal's "Mi Choza De Nipa" was one of his early works, and although I cannot remember anymore how the poem goes, I believe that the idea lingers on. The lowliness and humility, integrity and truthfulness, I adopt as my standard - for me and my family.
About this Blog
Lowly and humble. That describes a nipa hut. Fragile and Flimsy. However, it is easily rebuilt with patience and determination. The nipa hut remains a secure and peaceful abode, where individuals are born and raised and equipped with strong and indomitable spirits - that no matter how many times their dreams are crushed, they will rise again and again to life's challenges.
KUALA LUMPUR - From next month, all new foreign maids in Malaysia and their employers must attend a half-day course aimed at improving working relations between them, reported The New Straits Times.
The course that is being organised by the Human Resource Ministry is also aimed at reducing the number of runaway maids and physical abuse by employers. The maids and their employers must attend the course within six months of employment.
Human Resource Minister Dr S Subramaniam said the ministry found most employers to be responsible and supportive but "there is this 1 per cent who tarnish the country's image".
Speaking after launching a 30-page booklet on foreign maids on Saturday, he said the ministry also hopes maid employment agencies can do more: "We want them to act as a middle person and look into the management of the employer and the maid. They should also be able to counsel both the parties."
At present, agencies are obliged to replace a maid if the employer finds the helper unsuitable or if the maid runs away.
The course, which will be held during weekends, will also look into the contract's terms and conditions for salaries, working conditions, tips and how to end a contract.
Those attending the course will receive a book with hotline numbers, government addresses and phone numbers.
Asked if the ministry agrees with the recent call by Indonesia for a minimum payment of RM800 ($331.50) a month for an Indonesian maid, Dr Subramaniam said the ministry has rejected the demand.
"We will allow the market to decide on the pay because if we allow one country to decide on the pay, we will also have to entertain others," he said.
There are about 216,000 foreign maids in Malaysia with some 2,000 new maids entering the country every month.
SINGAPORE - Singapore's Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militant leader Mas Selamat Kastari is still being detained in Malaysia due to security reasons.
The terrorist, who once plotted to hijack a plane and crash it into Changi Airport, was captured in Malaysia's Johor in April this year after escaping from Singapore's Whitley Road Detention Centre in February last year.
Speaking in the Malaysian parliament on Thursday, the minister said Mas Selamat's ISA detention would ensure that his activities and contacts with other militant groups in Asia could be contained.
"The ministry has sufficient information to arrest him under the ISA," said Mr Hishammuddin. "We know his background, the details of his plan, network and contact with militant groups.
"He is arrested under the ISA as the government finds that he not only poses a threat to the country but also to the neighbouring countries like Singapore and Indonesia."
"Believe me, from the information that we have gathered, it was a serious plan," said Mr Hishammuddin. "We did not extradite Mas Selamat as we are concerned it will undermine the country's peace and put the people's safety at risk."
The minister also told reporters that Malaysia needed the cooperation from Indonesia to carry out its investigations.
Human Resources Minister S Subramaniam told state media on Tuesday his ministry was amending the Employment Act to make it compulsory for employers to give maids a day off.
He said it was part of moves to prevent the abuse of domestic workers in Malaysia - most of whom are from Indonesia - who are not covered by legislation that protects foreign workers in other sectors like construction.
"The ministry will make it mandatory for all domestic helpers to sign (a) contract of employment containing provisions like salary, the name of employers, their workplaces and the compulsory one day off a week," Mr Subramaniam said.
Mr Subramaniam said the off day would be jointly determined by employer and employee while the domestic helper could forgo the rest day as long as they were compensated for it.
Employers could be fined up to RM10,000 ($4,128) if they fail to comply, he warned.
The minister added that the plan could be implemented this year, but did not elaborate on specifics.
More than 300,000 Indonesian women work as maids in Malaysia. Many have complained of ill treatment by their employers, including overwork, unpaid salaries and physical abuse. In a latest abuse case, a 33-year-old Indonesian maid claimed she was scalded with hot water and beaten by her employer, who is now in police custody.
However, not all are for the mandatory day off. Some agencies and employers worry that maids will use it to meet men and run away. "It looks very good on paper ... (but) if you give too much freedom to the maid, there is room for them to run away," said Mr Raja Zulkepley Dahalan, president of the Malaysian Association of Foreign Housemaids Agencies, which represents 160 of 360 maid agencies. AGENCIES
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - A Malaysian prince has denied abusing his estranged teenage US-Indonesian model wife and threatened to launch legal action against her for making false allegations, his lawyer has said.
Tengku Temenggong Mohammad Fakhry, the prince of Kelantan state, on Thursday lodged a police report in the Malaysian capital denying that he had raped and tortured his 17-year-old wife, his lawyer told the state Bernama news agency.
"A police report has been lodged... we will be contemplating legal action with regard to the false allegation," said the attorney, Haaziq Pillay.
Manohara Odelia Pinot last week told reporters she was treated like a sex slave after her marriage last year to Tengku Fahkry, whose father is the sultan of Kelantan.
She escaped the prince's guards at a Singapore hotel and returned to her family in Indonesia with tales of abuse, rape and torture at the hands of the 31-year-old prince.
District Police Chief Zulkarnain Abdul Rahman confirmed to AFP that a report had been lodged by the prince and that police would investigate.
"The investigations will be transferred to the Kubang Kerian police station in Kelantan as the incident was alleged to have occurred there and comes under the jurisdiction of the police there," he added.
Manohara -- a well-known socialite in Jakarta -- claimed to have been cut with a razor and injected with drugs which made her vomit blood while being held under guard in her bedroom at the palace.
Her lawyer said she had filed a police report on the abuse but Indonesian police say they are unable to investigate as the incidents took place outside their jurisdiction.
An Indonesian forensics expert said Tuesday that Manohara had been physically abused.
"He (Fakhry) is just panicking to guard the good name of his family. We have proof that Manohara was abused. He should be jailed," her attorney Farhat Abbas told AFP.
JAKARTA: A medical examination of a teenage US-Indonesian model who claimed she was raped and tortured by her Malaysian prince husband, has confirmed she was physically abused, a forensic expert said on Tuesday.
Manohara Odelia Pinot, 17, last week told reporters she was treated like a sex slave after her marriage last year to Tengku Temenggong Mohammad Fakhry, the prince of Malaysia's Kelantan state.
She escaped the prince's guards at a Singapore hotel and returned to her family in Indonesia with tales of abuse, rape and torture at the hands of the 31-year-old prince.
"There are slash wounds on many parts of her body, especially on her chest. Some are still fresh," forensic doctor Mun'im Idries told AFP.
"We are still examining her blood and urine samples because she said she had been given jabs," he said adding that he also found an injection mark on her back.
Manohara - a well-known socialite in Jakarta - claimed to have been cut with a razor and injected with drugs which made her vomit blood while being held under guard in her bedroom at the palace.
She said after the examination on Tuesday that the prince would have sexual intercourse after injecting her with an unidentified substance.
"I don't know what I had been given but I could not move. I could see, feel, hear and smell... my senses are still there but I couldn't move," she told TV One channel.
With the help of Singapore police, the former model escaped home to Jakarta while visiting her father-in-law, Sultan Ismail Petra Shah II who was being treated at a Singapore hospital.
"The medical examination has been completed and the result confirmed that there is physical abuse all over her body. Her story has proven to be true," one of her lawyers Farhat Abbas told AFP.
He said his client on Tuesday formally lodged a written report on the alleged abuse with the Indonesian police. Besides the prince, she had named six other people, including the sultan and his wife, as accomplices.
"We have received the report today," national police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira told AFP.
"Indonesian police is not able to investigate the case as the alleged abuse took place in Malaysia which is out of our jurisdiction. But we will assist in reporting the case to Malaysian police," he added. - AFP/de
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - - Malaysian royals have described allegations by a teenage US-Indonesian model that she was raped and abused by her Malaysian prince husband as "a private affair" between the couple.
Manohara Odelia Pinot, 17, Monday told reporters she was treated like a sex slave after her marriage last year to Tengku Temenggong Mohammad Fakhry, the prince of Kelantan state.
She escaped the prince's guards at a Singapore hotel and returned to her family in Indonesia with tales of abuse, rape and torture at the hands of the prince.
In its first comments on the matter, palace coordinator Abdul Halim Hamad said "the Kelantan palace authorities are watching and studying this issue and until now consider it as a private affair of a husband and wife that needs to be settled through the provisions of the law."
Abdul Halim in a statement Wednesday also said that all the remarks made by Mohamad Soberi Shafli, a friend of the prince, reflected his personal views only.
Soberi had said the ex-model was allowed to leave voluntarily and blamed her mother for influencing her to make up stories about the prince.
Her mother, Daisy Fajarina, said she would press charges against the 31-year-old prince, and accused the Malaysian and Indonesian governments for trying to cover up the alleged abuse.
"Manohara has suffered physical abuse. She's got several razor cuts on her chest," Fajarina told AFP on Monday.
The teenager -- whose fairy-tale wedding to a prince captured the imagination of Indonesia -- said she would be tortured if she did not appear to be happy when she attended social functions with Fakhry.
She said she secretly called Singaporean police and pleaded for help after the royal family took her to Singapore when they accompanied Fakhry's father, Sultan Ismail Petra Shah II, for medical treatment.
"The police told Fakhry that he would be held in jail if he did not let me go. No one could force me against my will in Singapore and I knew I had a chance to escape," she said.
Malaysia's royal rulers used to enjoy immunity from criminal and civil charges but the privilege was removed in 1993.
Manohara's lawyer, Yuri Darmas, said his client would have a medical examination to back up her allegations of abuse, adding that he intended to pursue criminal and civil lawsuits against the prince.
Manohara has already filed for divorce, her mother said.
JAKARTA (AFP) - - A teenage US-Indonesian model has returned to her family in Indonesia with tales of abuse, rape and torture at the hands of a Malaysian prince, after her dramatic escape with the help of Singaporepolice.
Manohara Odelia Pinot, 17, told reporters she was treated like a sex slave after her marriage last year to Tengku Temenggong Mohammad Fakhry, the prince of Malaysia's Kelantan state.
Her mother, Daisy Fajarina, said she would press charges against the 31-year-old prince, and blamed the Malaysian and Indonesian governments for trying to cover up the alleged abuse.
"The things I've been afraid of were revealed to be true. Manohara has suffered physical abuse. She's got several razor cuts on her chest," Fajarina told AFP on Monday.
"No parent could be silent if their child was treated in such a barbaric way."
The Malaysian government had ignored her pleas for access to her daughter and had blocked her from entering the country, she said, while the Indonesian embassy had said that Manohara was fine with her new husband.
But the young woman -- a well-known socialite in Jakarta -- said her life at the royal palace involved a "daily routine" of rape, abuse, torture and occasional drug injections that made her vomit blood.
She said she was usually held under guard in her bedroom at the palace and was injected with tranquilisers whenever she complained.
"I am still traumatised by all that happened and it has left an impact on me," she told reporters in Jakarta on Sunday, after escaping the royal family during a trip to Singapore over the weekend.
"Sexual abuse and sexual harassment were like a daily routine for me, and he did that every time I did not want to have sexual intercourse," she was quoted as saying in The Jakarta Globe.
"I could never think a normal man could do such things," she said, adding: "Some parts of my body were cut by a razor."
"I've been treated like an animal. I'm like his property and I was in his room and whenever he wants to play with me he just goes into the room and plays with me. I'm like an object."
The teenager -- whose fairy-tale wedding to a prince captured the imagination of Indonesia -- said she would be tortured if she did not appear to be happy when she attended social functions with Fakhry.
She said she secretly called Singaporean police and pleaded for help after the royal family took her to Singapore when they accompanied Fakhry's father, Sultan Ismail Petra Shah II, for medical treatment.
"The police told Fakhry that he would be held in jail if he did not let me go. No one could force me against my will in Singapore and I knew I had a chance to escape," she said.
The model once voted as being among Indonesia's "100 Precious Women" said she escaped her guards by pushing the Singapore hotel elevator's emergency button.
They were reluctant to chase her because they knew the scene would be captured on security cameras.
She blasted the Indonesian embassy in Malaysia, saying: "They made it worse by telling lies, saying that I was fine while I was suffering in Kelantan."
A spokesman for the Indonesian foreign ministry insisted the embassy had done everything it could to help Manohara and said the government would assist her if she wanted to file charges against her husband.
"I think this is more of a personal matter. To date we have not been dragged into it, so we want to leave it as it is," he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia's royal rulers used to enjoy immunity from criminal and civil charges but the privilege was removed in 1993.
There has been no comment from the Kelantan royal family.
Manohara's lawyer, Yuri Darmas, said she would have a medical examination to back up her allegations of abuse.
"We need one to two days to gather evidence before we file a lawsuit to the Malaysian police," he said, adding that he intended to pursue criminal and civil lawsuits against the prince.
Manohara has already filed for divorce, her mother said.
Some things never change; a prince at this age and time, still thinks like a prince in the many, many decades past – that he is in full control of his subjects, let alone his wife…
----------
JAKARTA — Indonesian model Manohara Odelia Pinot, whose family claimed she was abused by her Kelantan prince husband, fled for Indonesia yesterday from Singapore, where the royal family was accompanying the Kelantan sultan for medical treatment.
Indonesian media reports said that the Indonesian-American met her mother in Singapore and flew back to Indonesia yesterday morning.
She told reporters she was no longer in love with the Kelantan prince, Tengku Temenggong Mohammad Fakhry, whom she accused of sexual abuse and violence.
"I am afraid of the daily sex abuse and violence," the Banjarmasin Post quoted the 17-year-old as saying.
Ms Manohara married the Kelantan prince last year.
Her mother, Mdm Daisy Fajarina, earlier alleged that Ms Manohara suffered "emotional and physical abuse" at the hands of her husband, who was holding her against her will in Malaysia.
THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
From TODAYOnline.com –World News, Monday, 01-Jun-2009; see the source article here.
Other than how he was caught, I am more interested in how he got away… well, the question remains: will this incident be repeated?
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by Leong Wee Keat weekeat@mediacorp.com.sg
05:55 AM May 09, 2009
THE narrow, some 1km strip of water separating Singapore and Malaysia is known for its fast-flowing currents, rocky outcrops and deep waters. Not many dare to swim across the Johor Strait and few live to tell the tale. And one of those few is Singapore’s infamous fugitive Mas Selamat Kastari.
Soon after he escaped from the Whitley Road Detention Centre here on Feb 27 last year, Mas Selamat travelled at least 14 km - it remains unclear how - and ended up at an unknown location somewhere on Singapore’s northern shore.
The Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leader, who walks with a limp due to an earlier fall, then used an improvised floatation device to swim across the strait. This is a well-known technique used by some illegal immigrants to enter Singapore.
Although the Police Coast Guard had stepped up patrols of the waters after his escape, security experts say it is impossible for their efforts to secure the border to be water-tight.
Once Mas Selamat reached the other side, he disappeared into the sprawl of Johor Baru and managed to stay one step ahead of the authorities for more than 12 months. Until April 1.
On that day, acting on a credible lead uncovered and developed by the Internal Security Department (ISD), the Malaysian Special Branch (MSB) swooped in on Mas Selamat, now 48, and arrested him in the outskirts of Johor Baru.
According to Bernama, Mas Selamat was arrested near Skudai, about 25km from Johor Baru. “We know that he has relatives staying in Skudai,” a source said.
Photographs and fingerprints provided earlier by the Singapore authorities were used to identify Mas Selamat.
His arrest was first reported by Singapore media on Friday, and was later confirmed by both governments in Singapore and Malaysia. He is now being held at an unknown location.
Details of how Mas Selamat managed to make his way to Johor remain sketchy, although the authorities believe, for now, that he did not receive any help in the process.
Addressing the media on Friday, Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said the authorities here “don’t know all the details” of Mas Selamat’s escape, as he is still being questioned by the Malaysian authorities. “Until he is brought back to Singapore and ISD interviewed him, we do not have much information on that,” he added.
While many questions remain about his escape, his arrest put paid to at least one conspiracy theory that had been circulating on the Internet.
Then, many claimed that Mas Selamat had died while being detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA). The Government, the theory went, had spun an unbelievable story about how he escaped from the high-security detention centre - by squeezing through a toilet window that had no bars and climbing over a fence - to cover up his death.
Mas Selamat’s arrest also marks the third time that the ISD - which incurred both public wrath and ridicule over the escape - had tracked him down. The other two occasions were when he was on the run in Indonesia between 2003 and 2006.
Mr Wong, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister, said that the ISD had begun developing some leads late last year and had shared them with its Malaysian counterparts. He paid tribute to the ISD officers on Friday. “ISD officers worked very hard, even after the setback last year,” said Mr Wong.
Given that Mas Selamat’s capture is a cause for rejoice, why did it take the Government more than a month to make public the arrest?
There was a need to maintain secrecy, Mr Wong explained, adding that the Government had been told of the capture “soon after” April 1.
Mas Selamat’s arrest occurred around the same time that the Malaysian authorities captured three other people for suspected activities linked to the JI terrorist network.
WEEKEND TODAY understands that only a few people within the Government and the ISD knew of the capture. Even the Home Team’s rank-and-file learnt about it only on Friday, like most Singaporeans.
One terrorism expert said the authorities probably did not want to alert Mas Selamat’s accomplices, if any, of his capture.
“The time could also have been spent getting operational information from him on plans, identities of accomplices, evidence of links with other JI cells in Indonesia,” said Associate Professor Kumar Ramakrishna of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).
Some terrorism experts believe that Mas Selamat had made the wrong move by staying put in Johor for the past 13 months, rather than venture further to Indonesia, or Thailand.
“I would have thought he would have been caught in southern Thailand,” said RSIS senior fellow Antonio Rappa. “If he were smart, he would have gone there.”
His RSIS colleague, Dr John Harrisson, also felt that Mas Selamat “clearly misjudged his personal security by remaining in the area for any length of time”.
Mr Wong, asked when Singapore will gain custody of Mas Selamat, replied that the Malaysian authorities still want to interview the JI militant.
“We will let them do the job and when they feel that it is time to send him back to us, we will be happy to receive him back.”
Will Mas Selamat be detained once again at the same detention centre where he made his headline-grabbing escape?
Mr Wong replied: “Today, Whitley Road Detention Centre is very different from the one on Feb 27, 2008. Many security measures have been put in place and that is the place we are going to put him in.”
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