It has been 3 months since 2021 left us. With people’s lives pretty much occupied with Covid-19 throughout 2021, it is easy for people to overlook or even completely forget about other, what otherwise should be unforgettable happenings throughout that year.
Pengiran Narudin bin Pengiran Haji Nor Abidin is the 43-year-old man who in August 2020, at 1030pm, ran over a foreign (presumably Bangladeshi) road maintenance worker at the Temburong Bridge. The incident was caught on CCTV and Pengiran Narudin’s urine sample showed that he was high on meth. Despite the clear-as-day evidence, Pengiran Narudin still has the audacity to deny the charges brought upon him. He should get nothing less than a disqualification from driving for life. His trial date has been fixed for June 2022. Why the process dragged on this long is beyond me, but then again…welcome to Brunei.
Anyways, what does this have to do with 2021 events? Well, eerily exactly one year after this incident, in August 2021, another life would again be lost by reckless driver on the same bridge. But this time, it was in broad daylight at 0900am, a female driver who was sober, not high on meth. So, what was her excuse? Everyone without vision impairment would certainly be able to see the safety cones in the middle of a straight road, let alone a human! But not this driver, who mowed down a row of safety cones that were laid out on the bridge and struck a road maintenance worker head on, sending the victim plunging into the river. The victim, 20-year-old local woman was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Nothing can prepare parents for the untimely death of their child in such a tragic way. At just 20 year old, the deceased had a big future ahead of her. She was about to enroll at a religious college, hoping to one day become a religious teacher. She took a part time job at the local construction company to help her parents make ends meet, a noble act that would cost her her life. As for the driver, 7 months later, charges are yet to be brought against her. Whatever her excuse would be, she shouldn’t be allowed to ever drive again.
Being the main crime type in the country, theft cases have been making the headlines on a daily basis for the past years and it was no different throughout 2021. But something was different about a theft case covered in the press on 16 September 2021. The news coverage talked about 30-year-old Mohammad Rafi Ezamdie bin Muhammad Daud (a career thief) being sentenced to 16 months jail for “misappropriation of property from the body of a 43-year-old woman and for failing to report her death”. At this point I thought to myself perhaps the dead woman was someone he knew or something or an occupant of a house he had broken into, who died of natural causes, then he helped himself with her things and left without reporting the death. As I read further, it was mentioned that the dead body was in a car by the Jalan Mumong roadside in Kuala Balai and the thief just so happened to drive by on his way to get (steal) some fruits at the nearby fruit orchard. He stopped to inspect (check if there was something to steal) the car and saw the woman “sleeping” inside. Ok fine, maybe the woman had a heart attack while driving and managed to stop by the roadside before she died. But then the story took an outrageous turn. Instead of moving on, the thief opened the car’s door to then discovered that the sleeping woman was actually dead. He then grabbed a gold necklace, bracelet and ring from the dead woman and left. He sold the items and spent the money including to buy drugs.
There’s nothing strange about Mohammad Rafi, being a career thief, kleptomaniac drug addict to steal from the dead body and to not report the death, no thief would. But, the outrageous part is that why would he, according to his version of events, proceed to open the door of the car despite seeing a woman “sleeping” inside. Was he planning to steal something in the car while the car owner was inside? I don’t think so. Looking at his previous cases, that is clearly not his MO. The action is only logical if he already knew that the woman inside the car was dead or perhaps, he had a part in her death. He said that only when he opened the car’s door that he found out that the woman was dead. But how though? Did he check her pulse? I don’t think so, him being high on drugs and all would be thoughtful enough to check for pulses. This makes me believe that, despite not being mentioned in the news coverage, the body exhibited signs of foul play like stab wounds or strangulation.
The news coverage ended with a bombshell – “The prosecution also informed the court that investigations into the murder of the woman are still ongoing”. Wait…what?? Murder? I knew it! But, to this day, there is no press, nothing on social media, no conversation on this murder at all. As for Mohammad Rafi, once he is out of jail, he will steal again, of course.
In June 2021, an audio recording was going around on WhatsApp. People’s jaws dropped to the floor upon hearing what was in the recording. 11+ minutes of what sounds like coming out of the exorcist movie, rants from a woman, cursing, yelling and screaming at the top of her lungs, nothing that anyone (at least not me) has ever heard before. This is like Karens on steroids. It was a phone call conversation between the angry woman and her son’s teacher.
The day before the phone call, when the madmom was picking up her son from the Perpindahan Bukit Beruang School, the son entered the car crying, telling his mom that his teacher scolded him in front of the class and had angrily thrown his book onto the floor. Poor boy. I would be mad too at the teacher. But this mom didn’t snap there and then because as she claimed in the phone call, she is the type who would investigate things first before jumping to conclusions.
Upon getting home she went straight to “investigating” the matter by, as she claimed, contacting (presumably through WhatsApp) all his son’s classmates and their respective parents, each and every one of them, to get their “testimonies” about the conduct and demeanor of the said teacher. I’m amazed that she got all their contact details. From there she got confirmation that the teacher did indeed throw her son’s book. She was also told that the teacher had “ampas” (spanked) the students and called them “bodoh” (stupid) and “pemalas” (lazy). This was normal during my primary schooling years, but I thought that this breed of teachers already extinct. At that point, the madmom became all riled up. She was particularly fuming about the teacher calling her students including his son bodoh. To her, uttering the word bodoh to someone is like menyumpah (putting a curse on) that person to, by some supernatural power, become legit a bodoh person. This would become the main theme or her rants during the epic phone call.
The next day, the madmom left the teacher a message to give her a call. She was restless waiting for that call to come, anxious to unleash the wrath that has already been built up to the brim about to explode. The teacher finally called and right from hello, all hell broke lose. The teacher was hit with a barrage of high-pitched verbal daggers. It took a moment to catch what she actually wanted to come out from the phone call. She wanted the teacher to admit that she had “menyumpah” the kids to be bodoh by calling them bodoh, then apologise to the kids, or else she would bring the issue to the attention of the higher authority. 98% of the whole 11+ minutes conversation was the madmom talking and only 2% the teacher. The teacher said she never cursed on any of her students, but she did admit of saying bodoh. To the teacher these are two different things. But the madmom was not having any of that. She assumed that the teacher didn’t want to admit calling the kids bodoh and only did so when she threatened to bring the matter to the higher authority. This pissed her off even more and the decibel level of her yelling became off the chart. She said “kajar-kajar ku ni” (im shaking now) and that her migraine just gotten worse to describe how she was feeling at that moment. She unleashed a string of expletives on the teacher, the very action (swearing) that triggered her anger in the first place. Its ironic that she got so angry over the teacher’s use of the word bodoh, when during the phone call she also used the word calling the teacher bodoh. She also called the teacher “kurang ajar” (uncivilised) and sort of putting a curse on the teacher. Yup, she asked for God to befall misfortunes on irresponsible people (the teacher), saying it at the top of her lungs in the tone like putting a spell on someone. To top it all, she got an issue with the teacher being “pemarah” (bad tempered) but then again, she admitted that she herself is a bad tempered person and that the teacher is yet to meet her match (referring to herself as THE match). Although the madmom has every right to get angry at the teacher, at this point the madmom had completely gone out of line.
The more she ranted, the more it became obvious that it was not about the teacher using bad words and mistreating the students, but more about the teacher having the audacity to call her son bodoh when the son is a genius who came top 3 in class. She just couldn’t wrap her head around it, and it was driving her mental. According to her, she never before had to deal with such antics from the teachers of her other kids (who are also geniuses). She said “Not trying to be arrogant” before proudly reciting her other kids’ achievements – “9O! 6A! 5A!” Who are you to say that my son is bodoh?? Did you give birth to them??, she asked rhetorically. Then BOOM! She said Carik kah bur17 mu melahirkan dorang?? (Did you tear your vajayjay giving birth to them??). Cringe! Now, not only she had gone out of line, to escalate to lewd insults is way too much. Not cool maam.
The madmom must have shared the recording that went viral thinking that the public would join her in condemning the teacher. Yep, the teacher shouldn’t mistreat her students like that but this misstep was dwarfed by the madmom’s outlandish yelling, barrage of insults and cringe remarks in the recording which left the public with mass PTSD. The madmom ended up being seen as the villain, a joke and subjected to memes and parodies on social media. 3 days after the recording went viral, the MOE released a media statement urging the public to use proper platforms to convey concerns or complaints on teachers. It reiterated that “The authority will take action against any threat, violence, discrimination, verbal abuse or obstruction of any public servant in the discharge of his/her public duties” The things that the madmom said in the phone call could pass as verbal abuse meaning that action could be taken against the madmom. Her intention to punish the teacher had completely backfired. It was alleged that a law firm had offered pro bono service for the teacher to sue the madmom. But so far no one got fired, charged or sued yet. One thing for sure, the recording is etched in Brunei’s history as the most epic rant ever.
Workplace affairs are nothing bizarre here in Brunei. In fact, they are incredibly common. It is also not uncommon for these affairs to turn ugly, but to get ugly enough with one of them being sent to jail is completely rare or even unheard of. That is not until 2021 when a senior p0l1c€ officer was handed a jail sentence and whipping for “sexually harassing a colleague”. The “colleague” in question is a female subordinate who made a report that on 14 Sep 2019, the senior officer was making sexual gestures on her. On handing down the sentence, the Senior Magistrate remarked that “her vivid description and demonstration made it clear that she had not consented to the act and that the defendant had committed the act intentionally”. Now, what man would intentionally grab the crotch of a non-consenting woman colleague? Exactly no man (with a sound mind) would. This logic should be enough to not take the allegation at face value in the first place. Clearly, there should be more to this case than meets the eye. Allegedly, behind the façade of a “sexual harassment” case is actually a manifestation of the wrath of a scorned office 5lu7. And for the woman to win, that is certainly unprecedented and bizarre indeed.
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