DIFFICULTIES OF BLUE IDENTITY CARD HOLDERS CLAIMING BIRTH IN SINGAPORE

Inche Rahmat Bin Kenap (Geylang Serai): (In Malay): Mr Speaker, Sir, although Singapore has only recently achieved her independence, we can take pride in her prosperity and in her people in spite of her lack of natural resources. While the citizens of Singapore are enjoying prosperity, there are, in their midst, people who are suffering because of the uncertainty of their citizenship status. They cannot be regarded as Malaysian citizens because they are holders of Singapore blue identity cards in which their country of birth is stated as Singapore. They cannot be regarded as Singapore citizens as their citizenship status has not been recognised by the Singapore Government because they cannot produce their birth certificates. They have either lost them or are unable to establish exactly their dates of birth. Their efforts to trace their dates of birth in the Registry of Births were in vain because their dates of birth were forgotten. In other cases the name of the child was not recorded at the time of reporting the birth of that child. Only the names of parents were registered. For these reasons, officials at the Registry of Births were unable to issue Extracts of Certificates of Birth and they advised these people to apply for Singapore citizenship. Unfortunately, when these people applied for Singapore citizenship, they had to wait for as long as two years or more without any reply forthcoming. In order to obtain employment in Singapore, Singapore citizenship is necessary, or the applicant for a job must be in possession of a Certificate of Birth in Singapore. What then will be the fate of these people and their families if the issue of citizenship papers is further delayed? They are, thus, deprived of the benefits enjoyed by other Singapore citizens. If they leave Singapore for Malaysia, they will not be accepted there and will be ineligible for the rights enjoyed by Malaysian citizens. Their applications for Malaysian citizenship will similarly be rejected by the Malaysian Government.

Mr Speaker, Sir, if these unfortunate people cannot make a living either in Singapore or Malaysia, where else can they go to earn an honest living? Unable to maintain their families, they might, in desperation, take to crime and steal and rob. Who then will be blamed? It is also possible that these people might commit suicide rather than see their families suffer. Such a thing did happen and it was reported in the Straits Times of 25th June, 1968, at page 6 and on 26th June, 1968, at page 5. This should be food for thought for us all and make us ponder on whether we should allow such a state of affairs to continue or whether we should do something about it. Such people and their families must also live like other Singapore citizens. Certainly it is not their wish to see the lot of their children becoming worse off in the future. It makes little sense to us, the people of Singapore, to be proud of our prosperity when there are, in our midst, those who are crying because of hunger as they have not yet been recognised as citizens of Singapore. Only time will tell when they will be consigned to the grave.

I hope the Government will consider this problem sympathetically and relax the regulations in order that these people may obtain employment. Alternatively, the Government should provide facilities to enable them to surmount their difficulties and establish citizenship.

Mr Rajaratnam: Mr Speaker, Sir, the Government and I are well aware of the problem to which the hon. Member for Geylang Serai has referred. We sympathise, of course, with the difficulties of people who are not Singapore citizens, but we have to sympathise even more with the difficulties of Singapore citizens. This is a dilemma which, if things were otherwise, we could solve. But we have also thousands of Singapore citizens who are making demands for jobs, for homes and for houses, and every non-citizen who is given citizenship not only gets a job, but all the privileges and commitments that we have made in regard to all our citizens.

During the national registration exercise, it was revealed that there were many people who claimed birth in Singapore but who, on further investigation, were found not to be born in Singapore. If we do not have some criteria for judging proof of birth in Singapore and if we just relax or ignore the law, qualifications and evidence required to prove citizenship, then having regard to the conditions prevailing around us, we might have thousands of people coming here who were not born in Singapore. They cannot produce birth certificates or any other evidence of their birth in Singapore. We sympathise with the people who claim that they were born in Singapore, but who obviously cannot produce any evidence.

I would like to say that during the re-registration exercise, holders of the old 1948 and 1949 identity cards whose place of birth was shown as Singapore were issued with pink identity cards. We would like to assist people who are undoubtedly in great difficulties, but we cannot afford to relax our law on this at the moment. We would like to do the right thing for one who was really born in Singapore but without any evidence to prove it. But there is no way of distinguishing between him and one hundred others who just destroy all papers and say that they were born in Singapore.

We will do everything we can to make life easier for non-citizens. For example, people claiming birth in Singapore but without any documentary evidence can, first of all, apply for Singapore citizenship in the normal way as any other non-citizens who ask for consideration on the basis of long residence or any other qualifications. Non-citizens who are holders of blue identity cards can get jobs in Singapore provided they obtain work permits.

Where a man holds a blue identity card and says he was born in Singapore and has the requisite qualifications, I am quite sure that he will have prior consideration with regard to the issuing of work permits than a non-citizen who was born elsewhere.

This is a difficult problem and we sympathise with people who may have been born in Singapore but are without birth certificates to prove it. However, I do not think the Government can just arbitrarily waive aside the regulations governing citizenship purely on the basis of somebody claiming, without proof, that he was born in Singapore and is qualified for Singapore citizenship.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

That Parliament do now adjourn.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine minutes past five o'clock p.m.