TUARAN: The United Sabah Lotud Association (USLA) has reiterated that it is fully in support of the use of “Momogun” as a collective name for the collective indigenous peoples of Sabah, mainly to replace the term “Lain-lain” (others) in government forms.
USLA’s president, Datuk Raymond Tombung, announced that USLA’s Third Annual General Meeting held last Saturday in Tuaran, had unanimously endorsed the action by him and USLA’s deputy president Richard Libun Adou in signing to support on behalf of USLA the Momogun Declaration 2024 at the Momogun Premier Convention at the Penampang Cultural Centre on August 1, 2024.
Raymond, who is also a member of the Momogun National Congress supreme council, said that the convention saw a record number of more than 70 Momogun NGOs of Dusunic, Murutic and Paitanic Momogun dialectical groups from throughout Sabah declaring support for the move to accept the “Momogun” term and to collectively submit a strong proposal to the state and federal governments to accept the term to replace “Lain-lain”.
“In Tuaran, USLA and the Sabah Lotud Commercial and Industrial Chamber, happens to be the only two Momogun Lotud NGOs which supports the decision,” he said.
“This is rather sad because our desire for a stronger representation by way of a unified voice is now even more urgently needed to face new demographic and economic challenges.”
He said that the misunderstanding by many indigenous leaders who believe that “Momogun” will replace the various ethnic names is perplexing and saddening, when clearly the term is the name of an ethnic grouping (rumpun in Malay), similar to “Dayak” being the collective name for the indigenous peoples of Sarawak and Kalimantan.
“The grouping’s name is definitely a much more sensible terminology than ‘KDMR’ in part because of its historical use since the 19th century,” he said.
“But one factor which may be difficult to overcome is the attitude by leaders who rejects the term due to political interests”.
