Time for DAP to do some soul-searching

I feel that I have to speak up after my bad experience with a senior politician from the DAP, a party that I have trusted and voted for for the past 40 years. 

This was mainly because of one DAP leader Dr Tan Seng Giaw whom I respect a lot for helping residents of Kepong, although he did not get much coverage from the media. Instead, his opponent from MCA Yee Poh Ping would, with the help of some officers from DBKL, always stole the limelight even though it was Dr Tan who managed to solve the problem for the residents. 

For example, when I highlighted about the poor condition of the playground in Jinjang, and DBKL refurbished it, instead of giving Dr Tan the credit (my job was only to highlight, but he had already spoken to the Mayor much earlier to have the budget allocated for), but the newspaper highlighted Yee's appearance along with DBKL officers claiming all the credit. That's why I never liked MCA. 

Instead, I used to contact Dr Tan for the latest news so that I could provide him some coverage (in those days, the media often blanked out news about the DAP), when I was writing for Malay Mail.

That was my experience in the early years in the 1980s and 1990s. But I have to say that for the past 8-9 years, my experience with the DAP has, however, given me a very negative feeling that the party has evolved into another MCA (I am not surprised when it was given the moniker in jest by some as MCA 2.0) as it no longer champions the cause of the people. The blame is always on others - Anwar Ibrahim, for DAP’s poor performance in  and perhaps, Eve, if there is one! Truth is, since they have tasted power, people who join DAP these days are no longer the altruistic ones. From my observation, it is not only those in government but even its grassroots - like the example of two former local councillors in my zone - are showing their bad sides that turn people off. 

I write this to prompt some soul searching for a party that was once known to be the people’s heroes, but if  they choose to continue with their aloofness, I do know what to say, except that they should not blame anyone if they have to face another major defeat where, like in the tenth general election, where its former leaders Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh had to bite the bullet. Indeed, no one is indispensable in politics because even for ordinary voters like me who had never voted for MCA find that DAP has become the way MCA was to me in the past, when its minister Ting Chew Pei did not even bother about the problems highlighted in all my letters to him as well as in the news media. There were a lot of articles in all main stream media, as well as on TV. The only person who tried to help was (now Tan Sri) Azmi Khalid, then deputy minister of Housing & Local Government. 

I will not mention the name of the DAP politician in focus, but it suffices for me to say that I had offered to give him coverage as a stringer with Malay Mail, and later even expressed that I was impressed with his appearance together with another state exco, at the office of the managing director of Panasonic, the late Jeff Lee. Jeff told me that he was deeply appreciative to be visited by two state exco who came to his rescue when I told one of the state exco the problem faced by Panasonic with the MBPJ bureaucratic red tape to have the EcoNation showroom approved. Within two or three weeks, I received news from Lee that MBPJ had finally approved the EcoNation project, and the showroom was going to be launched. 

For this reason, I would prefer to spare the former state exco of the embararassment. However, in restrospect, in view of what happened today, I can also say that he was probably a new broom back then. After all, a new broom swept cleaner. After too many years in elevated positions with police escorts during the period when he was a full minister, he has forgotten the sufferings that ordinary people go through. In other words, he no longer cares for even her constituents. This is the kind of politicians that I am meeting these days in DAP. If we write to them about an issue, it takes a lot of time on our part, and we want the issue, which is not necessarily our own, to be resolved so that people can get on with their lives.

Because this issue involves statelessness, he can blame it on Home Minister, Saifuddin Nasution,  so why on the DAP leaders? I know this kind of argument would come. But, Saifuddin Nasution from the number of experiences of appealing to him on behalf of a number of stateless people, he would always respond with the solution. 

As a result, a 33-year of waiting ended with an IC at last for Soliman Wan, and another girl suffering from SLE and stateless now can get free medical treatment from the public hospital after her citizenship issue was resolved by Saifuddin Nasution. It’s not my kind to flog a working horse just because he has not read my messages and reminders regarding this one particular case that I took the trouble to highlight to this DAP leader.

Now I am hoping that by taking time to write this, DAP leaders will take time to do some soul searching. If they do not do it, and they lose badly in the next General Election, they have no one to blame but themselves. It may have happened in Sabah state election, where the people in Sabah knew that it really did not matter to them who became the state government. They could have tried to send a strong message to DAP, and PH as a whole, to buck up.

But, at least, this DAP leader should know that for a 22-year-old man, without an Identify Card, every day is hell to him. You cannot apply for a driving licence, a bank account, or travel overseas even if the company is planning to send you overseas, and so many other things that we get for granted. Moreover, the issue was more complex than merely obtaining an identity card, and it required intervention within the ambit of the law to resolve the family’s problem without separating the children from their mother. Although I have not met the young man personally, apart from briefly seeing him when he was a toddler from a distance, I nevertheless tried to offer whatever assistance I could.

Because the family lives within this DAP’s consitutency, it was natural for the MP from DAP to look into the problem. In fact, if not because I thought he would be at least compassionate towards this family, I would not even have bothered to contact him, just like at one point, while trying to help a stateless child with SLE, I asked if Hannah Yeoh could write to the then minister of health to get some help after she turned 13. I did not want to waste time with jerks, but even after that, Hannah did not receive any reply. Such was the health minister back then during Muhyiddin Yassin's era. All that we read in the news about him during Covid was you can cure Covid by drinking warm water, and something else about Spanish flies. I can't even recall his name.

It was such a big contrast when Dr Zaliha Mustafa and now Dr Dzulkefly became ministers of health. Even though his portfolio is health, Dr Dzul also recently helped out with a case involving a Filipina currently working with a charity home for abused women, who is married to a Malsysian. The spouse has since passed on, before she could apply for a permanent residency. Since she still has growing up children in Malaysia, it is impossible for her to return to the Philippines while her children grow up with the in-laws who have been abusive towards her.

I explained to Dr Dzul, the reason why intervention had to be done in her case is because civil servant will only follow the standard procedures, where the woman was asked to bring her husband together to apply for the permanent residency.  The procedure is sound under most circumstances except that in this case, the husband has passed on, and even though the death certificate was provided, the same requirement was made by the staff. Throughout the entire process, until full information was provided, Dr Dzulkefly and I acted as an intermediary between the source of information and the Minister of Home Affairs, Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, whose answer was, "Give me more information. We will try to solve it!" This is something that all DAP leaders should reflect on instead of passing the buck around. 

What my friend and I were hoping, at the very least, was that this DAP leader could at least physically meet the Home Minister in person at parliament in June to explain the circumstances leading to the various problems faced by this family, just like what former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tan Sri Anifah Aman did to intervene for the divorced Malaysian woman who was stranded in China because her son was barred from exiting China. Anifah personally negotiated with his counterpart, Wang Yi who intervened with the lower court order, and mother-and-son were able to return home, something which till today I still talk about Anifah’s deeds for the ordinary rakyat, hoping more leaders come emulate his example when he was foreign minister.

I have to say this: it is absurd for anyone to think that this DAP leader can approve the issuance of the IC. We approached him not to have the IC approved in the first place! 

All that I was trying to arrange was for my friend to meet him was simply to relate the circumstances affecting this family so that he could brief the home minister on behalf of his constituents to see how best to resolve this matter perhaps by imposing a fine, but avoid a no-return deportation for the mother. This lady is already in his 70s, I guess, so I want him to imagine: What if your own mother is being deported back to her country of origin because she is a foreigner, and as 17-year-old, you can only see her once a year, whenever you get the chance to visit her home country during your school holidays!  

On my part, I made efforts to contact Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to seek the benefit of his advice. I did not, at any point, presume to ask him to approve anything improper or to circumvent the law in order to resolve the matter. Rather, my intention was solely to ascertain whether there was any lawful course of action that could be taken, within the ambit of the law, to prevent the breakup of the family unit.

After attempting to brief this DAP man the complexity of this case, he gave me his staff’s WhatsApp number for my friend to arrange an appointment to see him so that I did not have to type so long messages. 

Happily I asked my friend to contact his officer, thinking that WhatsApp messages would not work to explain such a complicated issue; therefore, the best thing to do is for my friend to meet with him to relay the circumstances surrounding the family. 

After all, this was what he said: 

Everything looked good until my friend sent me a WhatsApp update. I was shocked as her message read:“Spoken to Alexia, she ask to try to submit application. And no appointment given to meet YB XYZ. Alexia mentioned that because he (the young man without IC) is 22 years old, unlikely he is able to get application through.”

We all know this. The law is such that if you fail to apply for your identity card, you will no longer be allowed to apply anymore. By default, you will remain stateless for the rest of your life. That is the reason why we need intervention. 

When I asked the DAP man, his reply was curt: “I don't need to meet this guy cos i can't give approval.” He appeared to be very abrasive the way he puts it. I won't be surprised to hear that he only does this to me but a wrong is still a wrong. I remember some 30 years ago, when I stepped into his office to ask if there was any interesting news in his consituency that I could feature in the Malay Mail, he appeared to be unfriendly despite me saying that I was getting things to write from Dr Tan, his colleague. I only wanted the newspapers to be fair to all parties even though Malay Mail was owned by UMNO. 

What makes me fume is that, in the process of communication, here I was trying to explain a somewhat dicey issue that requires the minister's intervention, and instead of picking up the case involving his constituent, he just brushed it off. So there is no excuse whatsoever, for such a discourteous response. If this is the kind of response that we, as ordinary rakyat get from DAP leaders, in the general election, do you think any of us would even bother to attend their ceramahs? I think in most other general elections, something has gotten into their heads, thinking that people were rallying to support their party due to a high attendance. 

I for one, will now think twice. For a number of general elections, I tried to attend the ceramahs just to show my support despite the tropical humid climate, but with this experience pissing me off, I may choose not to even vote. In the past General Election, I still voted for the MP for my area for the sake of allowing Anwar Ibrahim to become Prime Minister, but in the coming general election, I may still consider voting for our MP, who has not been actively helping to resolve a number of issues for the past few years : flash floods, collapse of river bank, and so on. Most of these issues, instead, were assisted by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof himself, and i mention this to his credit. Being Sarawakian, he is more poeple friendly as he tries to resolve issues affecting the people. The DAP MP that we now have? I wonder if he would remain in the same constituency or decide to move to another constituency.  

Finally this is my reply to this DAP man: 

Why then do you ask her to contact Alexia?

People go to their MP because they have a problem. They don’t expect the MP to give approval for the IC.”

I repeat for the sake of my readers and friends: 

“ People go to their MP because they have a problem. They don’t expect the MP to give approval for the IC.”

It is, in fact, so naive for the MP to think that we were asking him to give approval for the IC, something that is only within the jurisdiction of the Minister of Home Affairs and that, too, is subject to the laws. 

WHO is this DAP leader who thinks people can expect IC to be issued at his approval? 

I told him: “You are destroying your own party’s reputation.”

For this reason, my friend responded later: “I guess can give up on trying with YB XYZ.” Instead she suggested that she would go to the embassy of the mother's country of origin to see if help could be found. 

I guess, even if I do not alert all of you, word of mouth will still spread that this is how a DAP leader behaves when the plight of his own constituents should be his main focus, or at least trying to solve; even though he is not vested with the power to do anything, he could at least talk it with the minister in charge. He can claim that he misunderstood, but I hope he now understands. I will be more forgiving if he admits age is catching up on him, and he gets irritable very quickly. If yes, then he should not continue in politics, because politics is about serving the ordinary rakyat, nothing more, nothing less. I see only a few DAP leaders are now doing it faithfully, and these are the ones we should support while I wish this DAP leader a happy retirement by GE16.

(Note: For those who say I am an apologist for PH, now you know where I am coming from. My only mission to write to make things right before the rot sets in…salt keeps meat from rotting, so is my writing meant to preserve the goodness that this nation deserves from our politicians. I am otherwise a jovial person who enjoys what the Malays call 'bersantai').