the (literally) top news in the print version of the daily express today reported the Federation of Sabah Manufacturers (FSM) calling on the federal govt to abolish the Cabotage Policy.

i fully support this motion, and hereby stand by its president’s call to allow direct business dealing with Sabah  & Sarawak main sea ports.

read the online version here.

for the longest time, this policy is one of the many things that don’t make sense to east malaysians. it is because of this policy that things are 20%-30% more expensive here and people wonder why we’re statistically the poorest state in malaysia.

geographically, sabah & sarawak should not be considered as 1 of the malaysian states. has anyone looked at the map lately? sabah is 1/3 of malaysia, as is sarawak. but we’re treated like step-children. many people believe sabah & sarawak “joined” malaysia.

no… sabah & sarawak (together with singapore at that time) “formed” malaysia. for there would not be a malaysia had sabah/sarawak not signed to “form” this country. that mango-shaped land which we all know as west/peninsular malaysia would still be called malaya had sabah/sarawak not signed to form our beautiful country, malaysia.

wah… terpesong pulak.

datuk wong, here’s to you. may there be more people like you around. cheers!