IS PBS & UPKO PLAYING THE SAME OLD SONG?

Veteran activist amused at UPKO’s act

KOTA KINABALU Nov. 9, 2011: A veteran activist is amused at how UPKO leaders behave these days, especially on their frustration over the cold treatment on UPKO’s cry over a few issues, most pertinently the proposal of setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the huge presence of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

Fredoline Edwin Lojingki said obviously UPKO deputy president Wilfred Bumburing was irked by the central government’s non-committal to resolve the perennial issue of illegal immigrants flooding Sabah.

“UPKO and Umno leaders are supposed to sit and dine together discussing what is best for Sabah and Sabahans.

“I cannot imagine they quarrel over illegal immigrants and then work together again on other matters for years and decades,” said Fredoline who is an UNKO’s veteran and coordinator in the Borneo Heritage Foundation.

Likewise with another BN component, PBS, he said its leaders kept on calling for the setting up of RCI on the same matter.

“While PBS has given end of 2012 as deadline to resolve the issue, UPKO has not said anything about deadline. Now that UPKO president Bernard Dompok is to see Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on the RCI issue, one cannot but hope something concrete for Sabahans to be worked out,” he said.

“It tickled me whether PBS and UPKO are just trying to outdo each other for some ‘face-saving’ stunts and position themselves in a fast-changing political landscape in Sabah. Some said that UPKO leaders are busy calculating its ‘profit and loss’ political account of whether to leave BN and when to do it to join SAPP.

“If this is the case, it would be most shameful for its leaders. And worse, the people, especially the non-Muslims, continued to be the victims while UPKO and PBS leaders prolong their stay at power.

“Nonetheless, we look forward to the Najib-Dompok meeting. Perhaps something good for Sabah would surface after that,” added Fredoline.