HO Chi Hin’s metalwork shop on the banks of Sg Sarawak is in its 170th year and has seen governments rise and fall since the days of the White Rajah.

Ho’s grandfather, who opened the shop in 1847, witnessed the takeover of the White Rajah’s administration by the British. His father also witnessed the formation of Malaysia in 1963.

Ho, 65, who inherited the metal fabrication and restoration business, witnessed the fall of Barisan Nasional last year after six decades of rule, and the birth of a new government under Pakatan Harapan.

Speaking at his shop on Bishop Street, Kuching, Ho said he didn’t know enough to evaluate PH’s achievements, but hoped the new government would play well with Gabungan Parti Sarawak, or GPS, the coalition of former BN parties that govern the state.

“Now we truly feel like brothers (with Peninsular Malaysia). It should now be easier to negotiate and consult.

“Last time, the younger brother would ask for a ringgit, but the older brother would give 10 sen. Don’t be like this,” he said, in reference to Sarawak’s relationship with the federal government, which Sarawakians see as peninsula-centric.

Ho’s 10-sen metaphor refers to Sarawak’s requests for its rights and dues according to the spirit of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).

The debate over MA63 and the federal government’s promise to restore eroded rights has heated up the state assembly and has been the talk of the people.

The assembly at its recent sitting debated Putrajaya’s failed attempt to amend Article 1(2) of the federal constitution to restore Sarawak and Sabah’s equal status with the peninsula.

It failed when it did not get the necessary two-thirds of votes in the Dewan Rakyat, because GPS lawmakers did not support it.

Casting for votes

With the Sarawak legislature due for an election by June 2021, many feel the current debate over MA63 and refusal of GPS MPs to support Putrajaya’s amendment is more about fishing for votes.

Ruling party GPS and opposition party PH Sarawak are both jostling to champion the struggle for the state’s rights.

According to GPS, Sarawak’s rights, according to the constitution, will disappear if PH Sarawak takes over in the next state elections.

GPS chief whip Fadillah Yusof told a seminar on MA63 on May 5 that the state would lose everything if the state government coalition was defeated.

“If PH runs the Sarawak state assembly, all will be lost. We will not be able to determine who can and cannot pass our immigration checks,” local media reported him as saying.

Fadhillah also claimed at the seminar, held in Demak, that the Sarawak Oil Mining Ordinance 1958 would be lost.

Other GPS politicians said PH’s support of its motion to meet Sarawak’s rights based on MA63 showed that the opposition was hypocritical.

“They fear being called traitors by Sarawak’s people,” said Jemoreng assemblyman Juanda Jaya at the state assembly on May 6.

DAP, however, said PH’s unanimous support for GPS’ motion was not hypocritical and only supported a good cause.

“There are things in the amendment we disagree with, but we could have still discussed it during its second reading,” said Tanjung Batu assemblyman Chiew Chiu Sing.

‘MA63 just politics’

DAP’s attitude towards Sarawak’s rights is closely watched, because it has been linked to its bad performance in the 2016 state elections, where it lost five of its 12 seats.

GPS, whose elected representatives were still in the BN coalition led by Adenan Satem at the time, holds 72 of 82 seats.

Observers noted DAP spoke much of Najib Razak’s scandals even though the ruling party was campaigning for Sarawak’s rights.

Responding to claims that PH would sell Sarawak’s rights, DAP state representative David Wong Kee Woan said they were accusations from a party bankrupt of ideas.

“GPS is the one selling our rights,” he said, calling the coalition’s attacks attempts to scare voters.

However, most of the people don’t consider the debate over Sarawak’s rights applicable to their daily lives.

“MA63 is a political matter. It doesn’t help the rakyat at the bottom. The main problem is still infrastructural,” said a 39-year-old budget hotel operator who wanted to be known as Oliver.

He said Sarawakians would benefit more from better basic amenities, not a reformation of laws such as MA63.

“Amendments to the laws will not be settled quickly. They will take time and drag on.

“But areas 40km from the city centre still have no clean water and schools still have wooden board walls,” he said at his hotel, near the Kuching Riverside.

Similar sentiments came from people living upstream of Sg Sarawak, who do not think the fight for the state’s rights protects them from being oppressed on their own land.

Musi Jeluman, 73, an entrepreneur and crafts trader in Mulu, said the Orang Ulu communities are still losing their land to local investors.

“There was the matter of land owned by a longhouse community in Saratok. The land was first rented, then taken over slowly. Then all that was left was its pillars,” he said.

He said it happened because the investors took advantage of its uneducated residents who were not well versed with the law.

“Fortunately, the government reacquired the land. The community is back,” he said.

Equal rights to Bumis in peninsula

The crux of the problem is the matter of native customary rights, which the state’s people do not permanently hold at the moment.

As such, the state government must immediately resolve demands for NCR land and release permanent owning rights to the people, said Glenn Baya, a homestay operator in Mulu.

“The Bumiputeras in Sarawak must get the same rights the Malays in the peninsula have,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Such rights must also cover taxation matters, so that the people, especially in the interior, can reduce their cost of living, he said. 

MA63, among others, gives Sarawak the power to enforce its own immigration laws and bar those it disliked from entering the state.

Debate rages also around Sarawak’s control of its products and taxes.

On Friday, a special cabinet committee discussed the state assembly’s April 30 resolution to review MA63.

It is the first meeting after Putrajaya failed to amend Article 1(2) of the federal constitution on April 11. – May 20, 2019.