He fought first for a MyKad, then for his people

Paulus Balan’s journey from a remote Sarawak village to becoming an advocate for his community spans education, identity and decades of determination.

Growing up deep in Sarawak’s interior, Paulus lived in a world where something as basic as obtaining identification documents could be an enormous undertaking.

In the 1980s, travelling from his village of Long Banga to the nearest town meant walking through the jungle for about two days, followed by another three days by boat. For a family that depended on padi farming, the journey was not only difficult but costly.

“It was really, really hard. Some people even thought, ‘Why do we need a MyKad?’ If you wanted to work in town, then people would ask for one. But if you stayed in the village, nobody ever asked,” he told FMT.

The fifth of six siblings, Paulus, now 60, loved learning from an early age and dreamed of becoming a teacher.

Getting to primary school already meant a journey of around three hours from his village. Reaching secondary school was even harder.

Paulus and his friends had to spend four days walking through forests and crossing rivers before they reached school, where they stayed in a hostel.

They carried rice with them and built simple shelters to sleep in along the way. Sometimes, they had to wait for the Baram River to subside before continuing their journey.

Yet distance and poverty were not the only obstacles: as Paulus progressed through school, he increasingly needed identification documents to continue his education.

“When the teacher asked where my MyKad was, I didn’t have one. That was when my parents began trying to get identification documents for a child who wanted to continue schooling,” he recalled.

But before he could obtain a MyKad, his birth had to be officially registered. The entire process of securing a birth certificate and, eventually, a MyKad took almost six years.

Without the documents, Paulus began to fear that his dream of becoming a teacher was slipping away. He could not open a bank account and, after finishing school, took on odd jobs to earn a living.

“My friends had already become engineers and lawyers, but I was still digging drains and cutting grass,” he shared.

His path changed when an education officer helped him obtain a letter confirming that he was from Sarawak and had received an education. That letter allowed Paulus to work as a temporary teacher in his village.

He was later accepted into Sarawak Teachers’ Training College, but the MyKad issue followed him there. By his second semester, he still did not have one.

Then, about a month before his examinations, his brother arrived with the news Paulus had been waiting years to hear: his MyKad was finally ready. Paulus was 24.

A second struggle for recognition

Paulus thought the hardest part was over. But several years into his teaching career, he discovered that the registration department had recorded the Sa’ban as non-Bumiputera.

“I became angry. Why was I not Bumiputera when I clearly was? That was when we realised we were actually not officially recognised as Bumiputera.

“We had always assumed we were the same as the Kelabit because we share the same roots, so we thought we were automatically Bumiputera. But apparently, we were not,” Paulus revealed.

Realising the issue would not resolve itself, members of the Sa’ban community formed a special committee around 2017. Paulus was among those who helped prepare presentations explaining the identity, history and background of the community to the authorities.

Years of effort eventually brought the recognition they had been seeking. In February 2022, the Sa’ban became one of 12 communities added to Sarawak’s list of indigenous peoples through the Interpretation (Amendment) Ordinance 2022, which came into force on Nov 1, 2023.

“We celebrated the decision and were very happy,” Paulus said. After the recognition, he also arranged for his child’s birth records to be amended from Kenyah to Sa’ban.

For Paulus, however, that milestone did not mean the work was finished. He estimates that around 30 Sa’ban in his village still do not have MyKad, along with about 100 members of the Kenyah community in the same area who face similar documentation problems.

He hopes these issues can be resolved so that children growing up in remote communities will not have to endure the same uncertainty he did.

The Sa’ban community is estimated to number about 2,000 people, although only around 500 are officially recorded.

After around 30 years as a teacher and now retired, Paulus wants to devote more of his time to helping the Sa’ban with documentation, strengthening their engagement with the government and preserving the history of the community.

He worries that younger Sa’ban may grow up knowing the name of their community without fully understanding the language, customs, history and culture behind it.

This, for Paulus, is also part of what Malaysia Day means – it is not only about commemorating the formation of the country 63 years ago, but also about ensuring every community within it is seen, recognised and valued.

“If we are willing to spend millions to make sure animals such as orangutans and tigers do not become extinct, I think people like the Sa’ban also deserve attention so that we do not disappear,” he concluded.