With a smile as warm as the deepest parts of the Malaysian jungle, it is hard to imagine local Bilit legend Nelson Deocampo having anything like a secret dark past. And as his booming voice welcomes anyone of any nationality within earshot into his home for the annual Hari Raya celebration at the end of Ramadan, his natural generosity makes that thought even more distant. But back in Deocampo’s late teenage years, the Bilit jungle wilds were said to be rife with drugs, unemployment and roaming gangs .
.. and he was said to be not just in the thick of it, but at the forefront.
The 48-year-old father-of-seven, who was born in Tawau and is now entrenched in the Bilit village with his wife Sefriana, is coy about his former life. But he is effusive about where Bilit has brought him to in life. “When I arrive at this place, lots of us not work, we just become fishermen,” Deocampo says.
“Now is getting better, because all the local people — people like us and the younger generation — they work full-time and get a salary every month. We have clean water and we have electricity now and our lives become high, high, high. “I love this place for the quiet, for the animals and I love the nature and the simple life.
It’s lighter now, not so heavy to think. This is my village now and I want more people to come and share it.” Some call Deocampo “The Man” .
.. even himself sometimes.
Others refer to him as “Nelson Mandela” after the late South African icon. Johnny Lim,.