Speaking at a gathering at Rh Manggah ak Budit in Tubau, Sebauh Monday evening, he claimed to have heard a move of certain groups to distribute some 1,000 units of handphones to build up support as the parliamentary elections closed in.

"If this is true, I always believed that the people in Bintulu would not be easily duped into this gimmick initiated by political opportunists," he added.

Warning the people that political opportunists would always emerged whenever any general elections becoming impending, he also learnt of claims that these opportunists would be providing solar-powered communication system if the person they promoted becoming the next Member of Parliament here.

According to him, the political opportunists had attempted to use longhouse headmen and members of Village Security and Development Committees in certain rural places here to expand their network to influence the people.

In urging the people to exercise their wisdom to judge the act of the political opportunists, Tiong questioned the timing chosen to make such offers to the people when the opportunity had been prevailing over the last five years for those really want to help the rakyat to do so.

"Where are they (the political opportunists) before this and where are their service centres all this while to facilitate rakyat in need of help to be helped?" he added.

Tiong, who was elected as the Member of Parliament in 1999, rested his confidence that the people in the constituency would not easily being duped into sacrificing an assured five years of continued prosperity and development by maintaining the seat for Barisan Nasional.

In keeping the seat for the ruling coalition, the people were also told that the Sarawak National Party (SNAP) had no rights to use Barisan Nasional symbol to represent their agenda, nor their own party symbol since SNAP's deregistration issue is still under legal purview.

"Although some people had been going around to say SNAP is still alive and kicking, I only want the rakyat to judge by these two facts (that SNAP is no longer in BN and the party could not use their own symbol)," he added.