Jimmy Leow

If Not For Sumatra, we will probably see the same devastation inflicted by the tsunami in Bandar Aceh and Padang on the west side of Penang island. Thousands will perish, buildings crumbled, injured by the thousands.

The whole stretch of Teluk Kumbar, Bedong Island and Balik Pulau will probably be washed away by four to ten meter high tsunami created by the recent strings of earthquake at Padang, Sumatra. From the view of Bukit Genting, half of the west coast of Penang island will be flooded.

On the east side of the island, the smaller waves invade the industry area, destroying factories at the Bayan Lepas industrial zone and not forgeting the residential areas where condominiums and shopping malls are built ridiciuosly near to the shores. One will also see the destruction of a resort at Pulau Jerejak.

The bridge which connects the mainland to Penang island will also be partly destroyed due to the massive waves created by the earthquake. Will we be able to rebuild Penang in such a short time? Will Penang survive? Will the coastal towns on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia survive such devastation?

The death toll in the Padang earthquake disaster in Indonesia rose to 603 while hundreds more are believed to be trapped in collapsed buildings in the west Sumatran city and mudslides that swept through entire villages in its outskirts.

According to official figures released by West Sumatra’s Disaster Management Agency recently, 785 people were seriously injured with some requiring surgery while those with non-life threatening injuires exceeded 3,400 people.

EnterinG the fifth day since the magnitude 7.6 quake struck on Sept 30, the stench of death overhung the city of Padang while rescuers tried in vain to find people still alive.

Clean water supply, electricity and telecommunication facilities were reported to be partially restored in Padang.

If not for Sumatra, we could have been heavily punished by mother nature twice in a time frame of 5 years. So far, Sumatra has been protecting the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia…respect her as she has been our saviour for centuries….

A video which Nick Kelesau and I made during our test assignment in KL. We did not know the video would be so popular among viewers. It recorded more than 56,000 views. Click below to watch the video.

http://www.malaysiakini.tv/video/17333/should-rosmahs-video-be-removed.html

Malaysiakini took to the streets to obtain the public’s feedback on the videos appearing on YouTube that aim to discredit First Lady Rosmah Mansor.

Although most were unaware of the existence of suchvideos, those who knew, offered mixed responses when interviewed by our citizen journalists.

“It is fine, everyone has the right to express their opinion, whether through YouTube or blogs. It is just a reflection of today’s society,” said Zawani, 23, when asked if the videos should be removed.

Sales manager Fong Toh Hin saidYouTube was merely a medium of expression which could be used for better or worse.

In a way it is good for the people to express themselves, in another way it causes a lot of problems for the people (or ministers being accused) in the videos.

“I feel pity for them, but that is the price you have to pay as a public figure,” he said.

Fong felt that the government should not monitorYouTube, as it should depend on the public’s understanding of how to use this medium for good purposes.

However, Mala disagreed.

According to her, the government should have a censorship department to filter through items posted online.

“But if she (Rosmah) wants to depend on herself (and not the government), she should come out and explain herself,” she added.

Chew, a manager in his 30s, echoed a similar stand.

“The best thing (for Rosmah) to do is to explain to the people whether these accusations are true or not, as if you try to stop (these videos) from one source, it will go to another,” he noted.

A user calling himself “c4productionhouse” uploaded three videos entitled ‘Rosmah Perempuan Puaka‘ early last month, garnering a total of over 420,000 hits thus far.

Story by Emily Chow, Malaysiakini

The chances are high. As at today, Hong Kong recorded 449 cases of H1N1 in its congested population of 7.5 million people. My business trip in Hong Kong will end tomorrow and I am flying back to Penang, Malaysia. My biggest worry is transmitting this flu to my immediate family and at this point of time, no one can detect the flu before the 7th day of infection. Secondly, I worry about passing the buck to my colleagues at work and thirdly, my fellow citizen journalists during our advance training in Kuala Lumpur next week.

Just received a call from my human resource section and they are proposing that I work from home until the “flu hibernation” period is over. So, I am not sure if I should go to KL because there is this risk of spreading the flu to others.

I must say that the government of Hong Kong has taken drastic steps to control the spread of this flu. I noticed during my stay in Hong Kong there were many TV announcements about the current cases, documentary about how to properly clean your hands (believe me there is an art of cleaning your hands), I noticed anti germ sprays installed at every lifts or lobbies and most importantly they have very clean washrooms.

If I were to get the flu, I would probably get it from the plane.

The video which Chan Lilian and I had the privilege of producing will remain as one of the top videos in my life. I was able to meet the Bishop because Lilian and I were very curious if what had been said in the newspapers and blogs were true. And the most puzzling part was, how come no one from the main stream media got in touch with him? To tell you the truth, we called only once and the Bishop’s office got back to us within 48 hours with a positive, “Yes!” 

Without getting the other side of the story, how could these well trained journalists write? And what was the editors’ function here? It is already bad that you have crappy journalists, but editors too? So, it is time to remind ourselves, what kind of crap are we reading in the newspapers nowadays.

I recently covered a press conference with Lilian and I was really mad when certain reporters tried to get the “victims” to act. For instance, during a photo session with the residents of High ChaparralPenang, reporters acted as directors of a motion picture, huddling these poor old women together to form a demonstration line and said,” Oh..You are holding the placard to low”, “Shout something”, ” Shout louder” etc….

Is this not acting? Is this not putting words into people’s mouth? I mean they have suffered so much with their land ownership problem and these reporters tried to get a “good” shot for the newspapers’ front page. 

And while editing the Catholic Church Penang Eviction Controversy, we also stumbled upon one journalist telling his cameraman not to include the cable TV disks which were installed on the villagers’ homes in the photo shot. What crap is this? How low can you go to bring a false picture of the situation?

With all being said here, it really make sense to have citizen journalism to act as an “alternative” news to show the different angles of the story.  And you bet I am glad to be one!

That’s where I will stand. There were times when we produced a short video report, we were caught in a situation whether to upload it to the world to see. Questions like, “Have we covered all the angles?” or “Are we being balanced in our report?” kept on creeping into our minds when the issue reported involves the well being of the victims.

I was nearly fooled by certain people the other day, believing what they said was the truth and nothing but the truth and I nearly jumped into a pit full of pit bulls, just waiting to chew me up into pieces.

So, it does not mean that if they dare to say it in camera, it is the truth. I mean several presidents too had lied in front of the cameras in recent years.

We tend to be “biased” straight away when it comes to the “victim” of society. We tend to tune our “pitifulness” towards them and at the slightest murmur of agony, we rushed in to assist without much hesitation. We turn up the volume and we asked for justice. I called it, blind justice…I was blind for a while by such acts of emotional manipulation. 

It took me years to understand the kindness of human beings, but it took me just one day to understand how manipulative they can be, especially the “victims”.

The past few days have quite fun. CJ Chan Lilian and I did a coverage of Bro Paul Ho, the last of the missionary brother in St Xavier’s Instituition, Penang. I will not spoil the anticipation by telling you the content in it, but I can assure you (especially Old Xavierians) that, it is a video you must watch. Stay tune at Chan Lilian website for an update and she is probably editing it now.

As a ex Xavierian myself, going back to this old school of mine does bring back a lot of fond memories. 

I could see so much difference between the “old school” type and the new generation of students. One thing still remains it seems, pornography! We used to call it, “Sex Books” during our time. Well, boys will be boys.

Many things has changed, time has changed, people has changed, but one thing still remains, that is the dedication of a Brother who really cares for his pupils.

So, farewell Brother Paul Ho and happy retirement.

When you have a plan and you execute it well, it is definitely so fulfilling. This weekend, I dedicated my time to make a documentary which I wanted to do for the past few years. The documentary is about domestic and industrial waste being dumped into this “river” nearby residential estate and industrial zone.

In this short documentary, I showed how such pollutants are being flushed out into the sea without any water treatment during high tide. I followed the flow of this “river” and was shocked to see so much floating rubbish along the way. The water is blackish and there is this heavy stench emitted from all the pollutants which have been dumped into this river for decades. I am planning to interview the residents along this river and would like to know how they felt after smelling this stench for so many years. 

Imagine, after so many years of “poisoning” the sea and its marine life, one may wonder if the seafood that we eat is safe for consumption. 

Pollution is one of the largest threats to our rivers. The reduction in river water quality is a clear indicator of the decline in the environment health of a river basin.

WWF

 

Look out for my next video, “Stop Polluting The Sea” and tell me what you think.

On the way back after getting shots for “Stop Polluting The Sea”, I decided to go up a nearby durian plantation, some said that I can find really smelly durian there LOL. So, I rode my old faithful motorcycle and checked out the harvest. 

To my surprise, I found 4 huge illegal dumping sites. I hope my short video of this dumps will prompt the related government agencies to put a stop to such acts by irresponsible parties. 

In this video, I mentioned that there is this little stream which will be destroyed forever if illegal dumping continue. Watch out for my video clip,“Illegal Dumping at Hillside” . At the end of this clip, I even showed how to reach the illegal dumps and the little stream,  just in case authorities want to go and have a look. Well, don’t just look, but act swiftly against these irresponsible parties. 

Never did I expect to get information about the homeless Wongs from an ex homeless person, Mr. N at Kawan. Here’s the story.

CJ Lilian Chan and I went to a place called Kawan located in the heart of Georgetown to get to know the organizers and their activities helping the poor. It was nearly lunch time when we introduced ourselves, Citizen Journalism Malaysia to Miss J.

She was very pleased to know what we do and gave us the permission to get to know the people there. Mainly consisting of poor people seeking shelter and food, the organization provide free meals and some counselling services to those who needs them. We also had the chance to see how food was prepared and on that day, Kawan was preparing for a serving of 70 people.

By 12.00 noon, the whole hall was filled with people who seek meals and the serving that day was Curry Chicken Rice. It was delicious. It was quite a sight. Food was distributed to individuals by several volunteers and they were greeted with thanks. 

During an interview with Mr. N, he mentioned that he actually knew the Wongs (homeless couple). He also said something shocking. 

It seems he came to know that a “government person” had asked for some money from the Wongs. They were promised of a better place to stay. In seems that Mr. & Mrs Wong Koh Meng paid RM 400.00 to this person and that was the last time they saw this con man.

According to Mr. N, he wanted to help the Wongs but they were taken away before he could do anything. When we told him about what had happen to the Wongs, he was very sad. 

What kind of person would con homeless people or the poor? 

I used the old road to Balik Pulau via Teluk Kumbar very frequently and it just did not hit me that there was so much to do as far as the new highway construction was concerned. Maybe it was the gradual change in landscape that did the trick. Taking a lead from my fellow Citizen Journalist, Owen Koh, a team of CJs ventured into the very heart of Balik Pulau and after making good a few assignments, Owen Koh, Chan Lilian and I, took a drive along the old road towards Teluk Kumbar to witness the “half cooked” highway. One requires to blur off all the natural beauty of the hills and the greens of Balik Pulau and focus on the devastating condition of the abandoned highway.

Signs of landslides are frequent from the evidence gathered which we can observed from the side of the hills and it can only get worse with the prolonged halt of this project.

There was this section of the road  which is so narrow that it can only allow a one way flow of traffic from both directions. This can only be done with several traffics lights and these lights are manned by foreign workers. Based on my interview with a foreign “traffic controller”, it seems these narrow roads are monitored 24 hours. When asked if there was any kind of recent construction, he answered no. It seems there was no progress for the past 1 year or so.

At present, the old road  has also a lot of dangerous corners and there was one in particular which I highlighted in my short clip “Abandoned Highway Scars Balik Pulau”. The edge of this road has a drop of at least 30 metres and the worse part is there was not permanent barrier to stop motorists from driving into the ravine.

Since there was a new road construction near this section of the road, a line of plastic barriers were placed. If motorists are not careful, they may rammed through the plastic barriers and plunged into the ravine, a fatal plunge I am sure.

I was able to see these because this time around I rode a motorcycle and try to understand and feel the actual situation. I managed to get close up shots of the abandoned highway and it was shocking indeed.

Based on gathered information, the project was supposed to be completed within the 4th quarter of 2008, but until now, not an inch of this highway is usable. What is holding back the progress of this multi million project or will it become a structure waiting to be swallowed by the jungle of Balik Pulau, Penang?

I was about to meet up with the JKM officer this morning when I received a call from him saying that he will be unable to provide further information with regards to the case of Mr. & Mrs. Wong Koh Meng. Yesterday, I called him to set up the appointment and everything seems to be in place. The officer just got back from leave after spending time with his family in Ipoh, Perak.

He told me this morning, if I need more information I will need to get the approval from a En. Roslan (Pengarah in Penang). The officer also informed me that certain information can only be released to the couple’s relatives. But then we know the fact that both of them do not have any children as reported by The Star in 2008.

I just like to know the whereabouts of their last address as I was told that their home was located at a hill side in Balik Pulau. I want to understand why they chose to sleep on the streets near KOMTAR when they have a home. Why? Why? I knew that Madam Ooi Saw Lean (Mrs Wong) was sick and used a wheelchair, is there a possibility that the road leading to their home was too steep? Or was the road leading to their home damaged? What?

Even getting their address from their identification card was denied by JKM. I have written to JKM’s Ketua Pengarah this morning via email asking for more information about how JKM treats homeless couples after their “rescue”.  Is it a standard procedure to separate them because of gender? Is it a standard procedure to distance them (one in Taiping and one in Tanjung Rambutan)? And will JKM consider putting couples together as to make their life more meaningful while they are in these homes?

Since JKM is not opening its mouth, I have no choice but to get help from the people in Balik Pulau to point out the whereabouts of  Mr. & Mrs. Wong Koh Meng’s old home. And I will go from there onwards.