More to this family than meets the eye

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A FAMILY IN NEED? Sii, like a lot of other people, tried to help the “Kong” kids because they were starving and too young to fend for themselves. The mother, Tiong, is on the right.

IT was September 24, 2012.

But no one knew for certain when the ‘mysterious’ Kong family arrived in Kuching or how long they had been putting up at a bus stop along the Kuching Waterfront.

When they were located, Mr Kong, 41, his wife, Tiong, 29, and five young children — believed to be theirs and said to between three-and-a-half months and 14 years old — were already camping for some days at the bus stop.

They tried to visit the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) Batu Lintang branch chairman to seek some financial aid and though Sii Hua Tong happened to miss the family, he made the effort to go to the bus stop to meet up with them.

On humanitarian ground, the SUPP youth chief helped place the family in a proper hotel before buying them food and offering Kong some pocket money as well as expressboat fares for the family to return to Sibu, their purported hometown.

Explaining his desperate situation, Kong claimed the family were from Sibu but got stranded in Kuching after he failed to meet up with a potential employer who had offered him a welding job at RM80 per day.

According to Kong, failure to contact his future employer three days after arriving in Kuching had forced the family to camp out at the bus stop after using up all their savings.

The father of five told Sii they had been surviving on left-overs from nearby fast food restaurants and their two-month old baby had not been having any milk as they had run out of cash.

Tiong (the wife) said she had to make do with a makeshift cradle (made from her sarong) at the bus stop so that her baby could have a place to sleep.

When the media broke the story in Kuching, many sympathised with the family’s plight. Some tried to find a job for Mr Kong while others gave money to help the family pull through until their sole bread winner found work.

Strangely enough, the family had disappeared just as mysteriously as they had appeared in Kuching — and have not been seen or heard from since in the state capital.

A year later (as of last week), Sii, reflecting on the incident, said he did not regret helping the family.

“I saw with my own eyes the children were starving. Whether it was a scam or not did not cross my mind that day. I just had to do something first before asking any questions,” he added.

LENDING A HAND: Sii guiding the children of the Kong family across the road. The family claimed to be stranded in Kuching after the bread winner (Kong) failed to contact a potential employer who had promised him a welding job. The family were forced to sleep over at a bus stop after claiming they had used up all their savings. — (Archive photos)

Seen begging again

On returning back to Sibu, the Kong family did not seem able to make ends meet as their children were again seen begging for food and cash from shop to shop.

A Sibu professional, preferring to be known as Mr Tan, told thesundaypost the Kong family had caught the attention of some locals for failing to send their children to school as early as October 2012.

“I was told by my relatives the children had been selling kuih instead of going to school. And the little girl, about 13, in the family, said she and her siblings had not attended school,” he recalled.

Mr Tan said Tiong told him she was a victim of her husband whom she claimed is a habitual gambler and that they had divorced.

According to him, five children were involved — a 14-year-old boy, three girls, aged about 13, nine, six and a three-and-a half-month-old baby girl. It is learnt the children were adopted.

“The community leaders tried to intervene by making arrangements for the older boy and girl to go to school. But they attended for just a week before schools closed for the term holidays. When schools re-opened in 2013, the two youngsters just disappeared. As far as we know, all the children did not attend school as the parents have been moving from town to town,” he added.

After cutting off contact with Mr Tan and the local community leaders, the family came into contact with Loh Yu Yee, 37, after a local entrepreneur, Andrew Wong, referred the case to her. This took place in the first quarter of 2013 after the children had been found going from shop to shop, asking for food and cash.

Loh, a member of an unregistered non-profit organisation — Sibu Angel Force — which aims to help the urban poor, especially single mothers, said the children told her their mother had been kicked out of the house by their father. Loh also learned three of the children were staying with the mother while two with the father at that time.

A surprise

When Loh got in touch with Tiong, the whole family was staying in a hotel.

“We thought a hotel might be quite taxing for them, so we offered to rent a place for them. Then came the surprise. Tiong said the room at the rented premises must have air-conditioning. We were quite surprised by the request but accepted it when she rationalised her baby would cry if there was no air-conditioning,” she recalled.

Still suspecting nothing, Loh bought milk powder, diapers and other foodstuff for the family – on top of renting an air-con room. Subsequently, she tried to make arrangements for the children to go to school.

It was during this time that Loh realised the mother had no intention at all of sending her children to school.

“When we arranged for her to work, she gave the excuse that she needed to look after the baby. Finally, we arranged for the two older children to work, pending outcome of schooling arrangements.

“But that lasted only two days after which the children started to go missing from work, giving all sorts of reasons, including the loss of identity cards and that they had to hide from their father.”

Later, Loh found out a Methodist church in Sibu had been helping the family.

Off and on, the church had given them more than RM1,000 apart from food, milk powder and other assistance in kind.

Loh and the church people compared notes and she then began to realise the family might not be as simple as she had imagined.

“I suspect the family is after cash. As it’s not our policy to give cash, the whole family started avoiding us and finally disappeared without leaving any message.

“It happened one day when I met the family in the street. The baby was in a very expensive pram which even I could not afford, and the family were heading to a national franchise food outlet for a meal. From their appearance, they don’t need help at all,” she noted.

INTERVENTION SOUGHT: Fong (left) hopes the Welfare Department will intervene so that the children will be given a chance to go to school.

Not last encounter

However, that was not the last of Loh’s encounters with the family. Some months later, she was referred a young girl, about eight years old, who had been begging for food in shops.

The girl told Loh she, her father and a brother were in town because someone offered her father a job but her father failed to contact the potential employer and three of them were stranded in Sibu.

Loh bought food for the girl and insisted on sending her home but the girl refused to give any address and instead led Loh to a bakery in town.

Checking further, Loh discovered the bakery owner is not the girl’s parent – and the girl does not even live in the vicinity.

The baker told Loh he knew the girl because she had been coming to the shop for left-overs. By the time Loh got back to her car to talk to the girl, she had disappeared and did not even bother to take the food Loh bought her.

It took some time for Loh to be convinced that the family had much more up their sleeves than meets the eye. Her suspicions were confirmed following newspaper reports that the family had been going from town to town, asking for help, especially cash. And the same story of being offered a job but left stranded was regularly being recycled.

A mother of three herself, Loh is seriously worried about the sort of life the Kong children are forced to lead because in her dealings with them, her impression was that they had not been honest and had shown signs of being seasoned liars.

Although not sure what was actually going on, Loh suspected the children might have been coached by their parents to lie their way into the hearts of some kind souls for cash.

An experienced voluntary social worker, Loh said while there were parents who really worked hard to give their children the best, there were also those who might be using their children as tools for their own selfish ends.

“We are now also helping a single mother with five children. As this single mother is poor, she has to get up early every morning to walk her children to different primary schools and kindergarten. And these schools are not near their rented house.

“There was a time she was working but it was just too much juggling between work and taking care of her children. She lost so much weight that she finally had to stop.

“Now, she’s just concentrating on taking care of her children. For this kind of family, we don’t mind helping as you can really see the love of a mother. But for the other family, what can we say?”

In August this year, Loh also learned from Chinese media reports that rather than ensuring their children attended school, Kong and Tiong had been using them to beg for sympathy and cash from the public.

POLICE REPORT LODGED: Fong (right) lodged a police report against Tiong on August 1, 2013, for using her children to beg for money.

Police report lodged

In Miri, DAP Miri assemblyman Fong Pau Teck had made a police report against Tiong who was then in town with her three children — the 14-year-old son, the 13-year-old daughter and the baby.

He cautioned the public to beware of this family and their modus operandi.

Fong got to know the family way back in 2007 and had helped them financially back then. As this family had also gone to other DAP offices to ask for money over the years, the party leaders had exchanged information and decided there was something fishy going on with the family.

“I have known about this family since five years ago and been keeping track of them through news reports. And now they are back in Miri again. I found out that the children whom I saw five years ago, still haven’t gone to school.

“We suspect the family have been using their kids to appeal to the compassion of individuals who would believe in their stories and give them cash,” he said.

Fong has also received calls from some members of the public, asking for the whereabout of the family as they wanted to contact the mother who had taken money from them in exchange for the adoption of one of her children.

“We discussed the family at our committee meeting and decided to go public about them. The purpose of making a police report was to open the way for the Welfare Department to intervene,” he added.

According to Fong, Tiong is on the list of monthly welfare aid (RM450) recipients and as early as March this year, the Welfare Department had arranged with a church to provide the family with food and lodging.

Arrangements had also been made to send the two older children to SMK Permai Suri in Miri.

“The problem is the mother has not sent both the children to school despite the efforts of the Welfare Department,” Fong said.