tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49501014834760719342024-03-07T16:49:15.958+08:00Siew Kum HongCitizen and activistUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger234125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-7340095741446524102013-08-04T20:15:00.000+08:002013-08-04T20:15:13.880+08:00An unexpected email 6 years later<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I received this email a few days ago from someone I don't know -- let's call her Kit. The letter is self-explanatory. I'm glad that Kit now feels better about herself, and is able to be who she is. The timing is also coincidental, given the new "Come Out Come Home" campaign launched by <a href="http://www.sayoni.com/" target="_blank">Sayoni</a> -- I don't know if Kit has really come out, but coming out is about being comfortable with oneself, and certainly Kit seems to be a lot more comfortable now compared to before.<br />
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<hr />
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<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear Mr Siew, </i><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I am writing this letter to express my gratitude for your service and bravery regarding the repeal of 377A in 2007 and for the speech made in the parliamentary debate. </i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>This letter of thanks might rather late as 6 years has passed.</i></span></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>In 2007 I was a young and naive 14 year old girl. </i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>As a teenager I desperately wanted to fit in, I just wanted to be normal or at least appear to be normal. </i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I tried very hard not to be gay because I was afraid of losing everything and everyone I had. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was convinced that I had to find a way to get rid of that aspect of myself if I were to fit into the society. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>In the next 5 years where I fought against myself, I was never truly happy and neither did I become any less gay. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>This year has been a really good year as I finally found the courage to be who I am.</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Life is tough and emotions run high but I try to find simple and small things in life to be grateful for.</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I try to look out for small signs from the universe that I am doing the right things and going the right way.</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Small things that inspire me to be optimistic and bet on goodness, courage, empathy and chance.</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I would usually not touch anything related to 377A with a ten foot pole because politics is generally depressing.</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">However I listened to the recording yesterday on youtube, tears flowed uncontrollably as I heard the speeches made by those in favour of repealing the law. It healed a small but deep wound that I never knew existed or so </span>conveniently<span style="font-size: small;"> forgotten. </span></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I guess I just wanted to let you know that what you did out of selflessness 6 years ago will have continued effects for decades to come and the passion you had 6 years ago will continue to inspire. </i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank you for your continued efforts to improve the Singaporean community. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wish you happiness and good luck in all of your future endeavours. </span></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Sincerely, </i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>A 20 year old Singaporean youth.</i></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-63063938445125491952013-06-05T17:42:00.002+08:002013-06-05T17:47:16.468+08:00Why the new MDA online licensing framework is censorship<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been using the Internet for a very long time -- since 1995 or so. I remember the days of pine, lynx and tin; irc, talk and finger. I remember soc.culture.singapore and soc.culture.singapore.moderated. I remember seeing the very first Singapore National Education post from mrbrown, back when podcasts haven't been invited and he was probably wearing pants everyday instead of shorts.<br />
<br />
And yes, I also remember when the Singapore Broadcasting Authority (MDA's predecessor) first introduced the Class Licence scheme in 1996, and the firestorm of anger within the (very much smaller) internet community then.<br />
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To SBA/MDA's credit, it has indeed, for the most part, administered the Class Licence scheme with a "light touch" in the 17 years since. So when various ministers say that the MDA would continue its "light touch" regime, I actually think that will be true on a day-to-day basis -- for the most part.<br />
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But that is not the whole picture. And sadly, so far no government official or representative (except perhaps for MP Baey Yam Keng) has seen it fit to squarely and directly confront the issues raised by bloggers, and as the Talking Point programme has shown, by regular Singaporeans as well.<br />
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The one glaring exception to SBA/MDA's "light touch" regime provides a cautionary tale on what happens when a regulator has broad discretion in a regulatory environment with ambiguously-worded legislation.<br />
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Sintercom (which stood for Singapore Internet Community) was the very first, and in its time the leading, socio-political website in Singapore. In 2001, just before the General Election that year, the SBA made a ham-fisted attempt at getting Sintercom to register as a political website. It did register, but eventually decided to shut down soon after. I can still remember the consternation in the community when that happened. From what I can recall, the summary at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintercom">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintercom</a> seems pretty accurate.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
_______</div>
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The new licensing framework for online news sites does not establish regulatory parity between the Internet on the one hand and print and TV on the other; the decentralised and democratising nature of the Internet, as compared to the resource-heavy nature of print and TV, makes that simply impossible.<br />
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But the new framework does establish regulatory parity between the 10 websites targeted by MDA, and the print and TV outlets already regulated by MDA. It does so, by subjecting the targeted websites to the same sort of opaque licensing regime as print and TV outlets are subject to, which ultimately tends to encourage self-censorship and threatens media independence.<br />
<br />
(Those who would claim that the mainstream media is free and independent in Singapore, would do well to read "OB Markers: My Straits Times Story" by former SPH editor-in-chief Cheong Yip Seng, and then take a look at the <a href="http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/aol/search/display/view.w3p;page=0;query=CompId%3A87a8472b-dd54-401a-b027-11e2bb71e5ca;rec=0;resUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fstatutes.agc.gov.sg%2Faol%2Fbrowse%2FtitleResults.w3p%3Bletter%3DN%3BpNum%3D1%3Btype%3DactsAll">Newspapers and Printing Press Act</a>.)<br />
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The new framework allows the MDA to take the targeted websites out of the existing Class Licence framework, and issue them with individual licences under <a href="http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/aol/search/display/view.w3p;ident=96fbd7cf-77cb-49e1-8bc6-38052224ed56;page=0;query=CompId%3A18b57d1c-ba4b-4c68-88b0-294ae52f8e24;rec=0;resUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fstatutes.agc.gov.sg%2Faol%2Fbrowse%2FtitleResults.w3p%3Bletter%3DB%3Btype%3DactsAll#pr8-he-.">Section 8 of the Broadcasting Act</a>. Section 8(2) states:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', sans-serif; font-size: 17px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 19px;"><i>Every broadcasting licence, other than a class licence, granted by the Authority shall be in such form and for such period and may contain such terms and conditions as the Authority may determine.</i></span>"</blockquote>
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Basically, the MDA can decide what the terms of the individual licences are, and presumably can also decide that the terms are confidential, such that the public will never actually know what the licences say. After all, does anyone know what is in SPH's or Mediacorp's licences?<br />
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Today, the MDA has decided that the targeted websites must take down content in 24 hours and put up a $50,000 performance bond -- conditions which do not appear in any published legislation, but only in the Government's press statements.<br />
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Tomorrow, the MDA can change the licensing terms to say that the websites must also proactively screen content and obtain MDA approval for editorial appointments -- and we may never know. I'm not saying that the MDA will do this, but Singaporeans need to know that they can.<br />
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And for the record, Singaporeans do not know what other terms, if any, exist in the individual licences issued by the MDA to the targeted websites.<br />
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Laws exist as much to empower governments to do good, as to protect citizens from their governments. Unfortunately, most Singapore legislation focuses on the former and completely disregards the latter. This MDA regulation is just the latest example of that, and the way it was introduced is just a very stark reminder of how imbalanced our legislative system is, that something with such potentially broad impact can be made into binding law with no discussion at all.<br />
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_______</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Let's go back to the various assurances proffered by the Government, in the days since it announced the new regulations. For me, they have all been meaningless chaff, smoke and mirrors that seek to distract from the central truth: that the MDA has established a framework whereby it can now easily take a website out of the Class Licence scheme, and impose whatever terms it wants on that website. All of this can be done, without any shred of transparency or accountability. Even if the same content standards apply for both the Class Licence and individual licences, the levers through which the MDA can exert power and influence are radically different.<br />
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I drew two main conclusions from all the empty statements from the Government:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>The Government has issued many, many clarifications. It has had many, many opportunities to clarify whether non-commercial websites like The Online Citizen fall within this new licensing framework, which it has spurned. I can only conclude that commerciality or otherwise is not relevant to this. Acting Minister Tan Chuan-Jin seems to have confirmed as much on Talking Point, where he seems to say that blogs (non-commercial) can be subject to individual licensing if it "reports news", which is really a meaningless and arbitrary distinction in today's world. </li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>The Government has thrown up strawman after strawman in trying to justify the new framework. The references to racist comments, need to ensure that sites co-operate in taking down content, etc. all become meaningless, when you consider that:</li>
</ul>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>apparently all of the 20-something take-down requests issued by the MDA in the past 17 years have been successful.</li>
<li>of these requests, only 1 was not for sex-related advertisements, and that was a takedown request issued to YouTube over the "Innocence of Muslims" video -- and YouTube is not on the list of targeted websites. Let me repeat that: <u><b><span style="color: red;">the MDA does not see fit to individually license the one website that has actually received a takedown notice over potentially inflammatory content in the past 17 years.</span></b></u></li>
</ol>
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The new framework is ostensibly to ensure fair and accurate news reporting, and yet the Government throws up justifications that have nothing to do with news reporting at all. Indeed, the Government has not cited one single example of unfair or inaccurate news reporting. And, as either Bertha Henson or Arun Mahizhnan pointed out on Talking Point, inaccurate news reporting is best combated by clarifications and rights of reply -- not outright removal of content.<br />
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So the objective of this new licensing framework must be something else altogether. The obvious suspect is censorship, or rather the power to censor, over independent media outlets like Yahoo! and The Online Citizen. (See also <a href="http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20130601-426753.html">my interview in the Straits Times last Saturday June 1</a>.)<br />
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The Government has had ample opportunity to make its case for why that is not so. It has failed abjectly in every single attempt.<br />
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I am overseas and will not be able to join the <a href="http://www.freemyinternet.com/">#freemyinternet</a> protest on Saturday June 8. I will however blackout this blog on Thursday June 6, in solidarity with my fellow bloggers in Singapore. I have also signed <a href="http://www.petitions24.com/petition_for_the_immediate_withdrawal_of_the_licensing_regime">the petition calling for the withdrawal of the new licensing framework</a>.<br />
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73% of respondents to the Talking Point live poll think that the new licensing framework will limit online news content. If you do not want to see that happen, please sign the petition and join the protest at Hong Lim Park from 4-7pm on Saturday.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-69970391458657552662013-06-01T18:26:00.000+08:002013-06-03T05:22:44.151+08:00Free My Internet: or, I can choose what I read on the Internet, ok?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: 2.5em; letter-spacing: 0em; line-height: 1.2em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">#FreeMyInternet – Movement against new licensing requirements for online media</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The blogging community -- collectively called Free My Internet -- will be organising a protest and online blackout next week against the new licensing requirements imposed by the Media Development Authority, which requires "online news sites" to put up a "performance bond" of $50,000 and "comply within 24 hours to MDA's directions to remove content that is found to be in breach of content standards".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We encourage all Singaporeans who are concerned about our future and our ability to participate in everyday online activities and discussions, and to seek out alternative news and analysis, to take a strong stand against the licensing regime which can impede on your independence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We urge Singaporeans to turn up to send a clear message to our elected representatives to trust the Singaporeans who elected them.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Singaporeans can support us in three ways:</span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) Join us at the protest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Date: 8 June 2013</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Time: 4.00pm – 7.00pm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Venue: Speakers Corner, Hong Lim Park</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) If you are a blogger, join us in an online blackout by closing your blog for 24 hours, from Thursday 6 June, 0001 hrs to 6 June, 2359 hrs. You can choose to create your own blackout notice, or use<a href="http://www.freemyinternet.com/"> <span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #225e9b;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">www.freemyinternet.com</span></span></span></a> we have created for your convenience. When you reopen your blog, write your account of the protest, about the new regulations and censorship, or anything related to media freedom in Singapore. Share your thoughts. Share your hope that the light that free speech provides will not go out on us.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3) Sign our petition and read our FAQ at this <a href="http://www.petitions24.com/petition_for_the_immediate_withdrawal_of_the_licensing_regime" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">link</a> to call for the Ministry of Communications and Information to completely withdraw the licensing regime.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">We invite media to cover the protest at Hong Lim Park</span></i>. To indicate media attendance and other media queries, please contact Howard Lee at <a href="mailto:howard@theonlinecitizen.com" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">howard@theonlinecitizen.com</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Signed off as: Free My Internet</span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leong Sze Hian – <a href="http://leongszehian.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://leongszehian.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Andrew Loh – <a href="http://andrewlohhp.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://andrewlohhp.wordpress.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ravi Philemon – <a href="http://www.raviphilemon.net/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.raviphilemon.net/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kumaran Pillai – <a href="http://sgvoize.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://sgvoize.wordpress.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Terry Xu – <a href="http://theonlinecitizen.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://theonlinecitizen.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Richard Wan – <a href="http://www.tremeritus.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.tremeritus.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Choo Zheng Xi – <a href="http://theonlinecitizen.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://theonlinecitizen.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rachel Zeng – <a href="http://rachelzeng.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://rachelzeng.wordpress.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Roy Ngerng – <a href="http://thehearttruths.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://thehearttruths.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kirsten Han – <a href="http://spuddings.net/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://spuddings.net/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gilbert Goh – <a href="http://www.transitioning.org/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.transitioning.org/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lynn Lee – <a href="http://www.lianainfilms.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.lianainfilms.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Biddy Low – <a href="http://publichouse.sg/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://publichouse.sg/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Martyn See – <a href="http://singaporerebel.blogspot.sg/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://singaporerebel.blogspot.sg/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Howard Lee – <a href="http://theonlinecitizen.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://theonlinecitizen.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Elaine Ee – <a href="http://publichouse.sg/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://publichouse.sg/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joshua Chiang – <a href="http://facebook.com/joshuafly" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://facebook.com/joshuafly</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Donaldson Tan – <a href="http://newasiarepublic.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://newasiarepublic.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stephanie Chok – <a href="http://littlemskaypoh.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://littlemskaypoh.wordpress.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jolovan Wham – <a href="http://www.workfairsingapore.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.workfairsingapore.wordpress.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ng E-Jay – <a href="http://www.sgpolitics.net/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.sgpolitics.net</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Siew Kum Hong – <a href="http://siewkumhong.blogspot.sg/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://siewkumhong.blogspot.sg/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Darryl Kang – <a href="http://blog.dk.sg/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://blog.dk.sg</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Daniel Yap – <a href="http://doulosyap.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://doulosyap.wordpress.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jean Chong – <a href="http://www.sayoni.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.sayoni.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Benjamin Cheah – <a href="http://www.benjamincheah.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.benjamincheah.wordpress.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Theodore Lee – <a href="http://www.mrbrown.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.mrbrown.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Benjamin Lee – <a href="http://miyagi.sg/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://miyagi.sg</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Illusio – <a href="http://akikonomu.blogspot.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://akikonomu.blogspot.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lee Xian Jie – <a href="http://hachisu.com.sg/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://hachisu.com.sg</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Damien Chng – <a href="http://secondchances.asia/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://secondchances.asia</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Priscilla Chia – <a href="http://secondchances.asia/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #225e9b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://secondchances.asia</a></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-34884061332621434752013-05-31T14:01:00.001+08:002013-05-31T14:43:44.151+08:00Why Singapore’s crackdown on online news reporting is a mistake<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>This was first published on <a href="http://mumbrella.asia/2013/05/why-the-singapore-governments-crack-down-on-news-reporting-is-wrong/">mumbrella.asia</a>.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h1 style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 2px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Why Singapore’s crackdown on online news reporting is a mistake</span></h1>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://mumbrella.asia/content/uploads/2013/05/Screen-Shot-2013-05-29-at-3.32.56-PM.png" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Siew Kum Hong" class="alignright wp-image-2824" height="104" src="http://mumbrella.asia/content/uploads/2013/05/Screen-Shot-2013-05-29-at-3.32.56-PM.png" style="border: none; display: inline; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 10px 10px; padding: 0px;" width="91" /></a></span></em></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My sense is that for a long time now, the Singapore government has been looking for a way to give itself the power to censor the internet, in the same way that it has the power to censor offline media.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It may choose to exercise that power sparingly; but the mere possibility of censorship creates a strong chilling effect.<span id="more-2832"></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This new regulation is a mistake, and reinforces the perception that Singapore is a repressive place — which is precisely the wrong message to be sending to a globalised and networked world, when you are trying to build an innovative and creative economy where freedom of thought is so essential.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a significant retreat from the “light touch” approach to internet censorship that the Singapore government has espoused since the late 1990s.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have gone from being arguably the first country in the world to gazette a socio-political community blog as a “political association” (by this I mean <a href="http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Online Citizen</a>), to being probably the first democratic country in the world to require websites to post a significant monetary bond before they can continue publishing.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While the Media Development Authority has sought to frame it as establishing regulatory parity between online and offline news outlets, the details available to date show otherwise.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most notably, the MDA now has the power to order online news sites to remove purportedly illegal content within 24 hours, failing which the site stands to lose its $50,000 bond.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But there is no equivalent to this for newspapers, for example; if the Straits Times publishes an article that is prohibited under MDA guidelines, the Straits Times is not obligated to recall all unsold copies within 24 hours.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More fundamentally, the power to compel content removal is simply the power to censor outright. If the intent was to ensure responsible or accurate reporting, then surely the MDA should have chosen to include the power to order the publication of an update or correction as well. But this does not seem to be the case, at least based on the MDA’s own announcement.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now that the government has announced this, the damage has been done. But the MDA can still mitigate this by clearly affirming that this regulation will cover only commercially-operated sites, and not true citizen-operated sites like The Online Citizen and <a href="http://www.tremeritus.com/" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Real Singapore</a>. That will go a long way towards addressing the perception that this measure is solely intended to bring the internet to heel, so to speak.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, I can’t speak for what Yahoo! should or might do, as the license conditions have not been published. I am a little surprised that MDA chose to make the announcement without also publishing the license conditions — this creates uncertainty and lacks transparency.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is however notable that of the 10 sites [which are: Asiaone.com, Businesstimes.com.sg, Channelnewsasia.com, Omy.sg, Sg.news.yahoo.com, Stomp.com.sg, Straitstimes.com, Tnp.sg, Todayonline.com and Zaobao.com], Yahoo! Singapore was the only site that is not operated by a government-controlled or -owned company (so Singapore Press Holdings and MediaCorp).</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This will inevitably lead to speculation that this regulatory action is aimed directly at Yahoo!, with the goal of ensuring that the government has direct or indirect control or influence over all major online news outlets in Singapore.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; padding: 0px 0px 8px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Disclosure: I was the General Counsel of Yahoo! Southeast Asia up to October 2012, but I did not work on this matter at all. I wrote this in my personal capacity. Thanks to Robin Hicks from mumbrella.asia for some excellent editing.</i></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-70886344486955381772013-02-15T08:17:00.000+08:002013-02-15T08:17:00.081+08:00Beggaring my neighbor does not make me rich: why the National Defence Duty will not workI've wanted to blog about the Population White Paper for a week now. But I have very complicated feelings about it, and couldn't figure out exactly what I would say. Until I read Hri Kumar's suggestion about <a href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1254044/1/.html">a National Defence Duty on foreigners and PRs</a> (with the catchy tagline of "<i>we do duty, they pay a duty</i>"). Things clicked immediately (more on the White Paper on a later post).<br />
<br />
Hri Kumar's suggestion makes perfect sense -- if you see the world through the lens of rational economic theory and you think of people as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus">homo economicus</a>. Male Singaporeans suffer a disadvantage because of NS, so let's apply a tax to make male PRs/foreigners equally disadvantaged. Perfect economic sense, and true to the PAP's technocratic bent.<br />
<br />
Except that the world is about much more than economics, and people are homo sapiens not homo economicus. We've traditionally talked about NS as a <i><u>noble</u></i> sacrifice, a ritual that turned boys into men. More recently, we've seen it also as a great social leveller that helps Singaporeans from different socio-economic classes mix and understand each other in a way that schools no longer allow (I totally agree, but have to wonder about female Singaporeans then).<br />
<br />
And now an MP wants to put a price on it. It makes cold hard rational sense, but humans are warm-blooded; we become cold and hard only after we die.<br />
<br />
This proposal encapsulates why the PAP as a whole is struggling so much today. It has become too transactional in its philosophy, the dollars and cents have become too entrenched and central in its thinking. Again, it all makes rational economic sense -- but we are real human beings, not abstract economic units.<br />
<br />
This transactional worldview also explains why, despite the PAP's best efforts to "sharpen the differences" between Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans, Singaporeans remain so unhappy and unappreciated. That is because these efforts would work, only for Singaporeans who truly love <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude">schadenfraude</a>.<br />
<br />
If I am unhappy because I think I am being badly treated, would I really feel better just because the Government treats someone else equally badly? I mean, relatively speaking the other person may no longer be better off than me, but it does not improve my own position in any way. Imposing the National Defence Duty makes foreigners and PRs worse-off, but do not directly improve the lot of Singaporean males (at least not by much, and certainly not in any meaningful way), and most importantly does nothing to address their main concerns, in particular the complaint that employers discriminate against Singaporean males because of their NS liabilities.<br />
<br />
In the same vein, charging PRs and foreigners more for public education and public health services (and even, bafflingly enough, <a href="http://www.stc-ridingcentre.com/fees-and-payments.php">horseriding fees at the Turf Club</a> -- an American told me about this) has not made Singaporeans feel better, and not surprisingly, because it's not like they are paying less. Seeing my fellow inhabitant of Singapore suffer as much as I do does not make me suffer any less.<br />
<br />
In economic terms, these policies can make sense. The National Defence Duty seeks to quantify the opportunity cost of having to serve Full-Time National Service, and then impose it on those who do not have to serve. Heck, the formula can probably even be tweaked to include some proxy measure of the opportunity and other costs of NS liability. Similarly, differentiated fees for Singaporeans vs PRs/foreigners means that Singaporeans are better-off than PRs/foreigners, even though Singaporeans are actually not better-off at all.<br />
<br />
But in all these cases, the Singaporean's life does not become better in a meaningful way. This is the flaw of the PAP's transactional worldview -- it is a view of the economic world, and not of the real world.<br />
<br />
Instead, if we want to make up for the cost and burden of defending the country, we should give those who have served NS even more benefits than they receive today. More, much more than the tax relief and the SAFRA membership. This is not to compensate them for what they have given up for NS, which is frankly something that can never really be done, but to do what we can, as a country, to recognise their contributions and express our appreciation.<br />
<br />
For example, we can waive polyclinic consultation fees and public hospital C-class bed charges (or apply an equivalent discount for those who opt for more expensive classes), in full for everybody who has completed Full-Time NS and the 13-year NS cycle, and at 25% or some other percentage for those who completed Full-Time NS but did not have NS liability. And yes, that's for life.<br />
<br />
And/or do the same for public school fees and miscellaneous fees. And/or public transport charges when they become senior citizens. And/or discount other medical charges in public hospitals. And/or give them priority queues in public government agencies.<br />
<br />
The possibilities are nearly endless. Yes, these measures can be costly and/or inefficient. But the goal here is not to be economically efficient or precise, but to express our true gratitude to those who have given up part of their lives to serve and defend Singapore and Singaporeans. And honestly, we spent over S$12 billion on defence in 2012; anything we do will almost certainly be less than a drop in that ocean of money.<br />
<br />
Similarly, sharpening the differences between Singaporeans and PRs/foreigners should be done not be making things more expensive for PRs/foreigners, but by giving some positive benefit to the Singaporeans. Instead of increasing the school fees and polyclinic charges for PRs/foreigners, why not reduce them for Singaporeans. It may cost more to the Government, but it will also be much, much more likely to achieve the desired results of making Singaporeans feel cherished.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-91888569180101909662012-06-04T11:26:00.002+08:002012-06-04T11:27:08.259+08:00In Memory of 1987: video<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here is the video of my speech on Saturday:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PYPBnzsc9TA" width="560"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-73329222489412532232012-06-03T18:12:00.001+08:002012-06-04T11:26:58.152+08:00In Memory of 1987<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
On Saturday 2 June 2012, <a href="http://www.maruah.org/">MARUAH</a> and <a href="http://fn8org.wordpress.com/">Function 8</a> organized an event called <a href="http://remembering1987.wordpress.com/">"That We May Dream Again"</a> to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Operation Spectrum. I spoke at this event as Vice-President of MARUAH.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<u><b>In Memory of 1987</b></u></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Ladies
and gentlemen, friends and colleagues, thank you for coming here today. My name
is Siew Kum Hong. I speak today in my capacity of Vice-President of MARUAH. And
I am very honoured to speak here today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said: “The only thing we have to fear
is fear itself.” Looking at all of you here today, I am heartened to know that
so many Singaporeans are no longer afraid of the Internal Security Act, or of
the 1987 detentions. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
fear is the currency of the ISA. Its scope is notoriously broad, its wording
infamously vague. I personally believe that this is deliberately so, to keep
the population in line. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I
once heard someone say, with full sincerity and conviction, that the ISA has
not been used to detain political opponents in the last 10 to 15 years. I think
that is probably true. But that time-frame seems carefully selected. Would that
person have been equally sincere and convincing, if he had said 25 years
instead?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
events of 1987 still haunt many Singaporeans, especially the older generations.
It is different from younger Singaporeans, many of whom had not even been born
in 1987.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
1987, I was 12 years old. I only have a
hazy recollection of what was happening then. So most of what I know is based
on what I have seen, read and heard as an adult. And of course, what I studied
in law school and what I and my colleagues in MARUAH have researched since.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Like
how some 1987 detainees challenged their detentions and won their case before
the Court of Appeal, only to be immediately re-detained upon their release.
Like how the Government quickly amended the ISA after that case, to limit future
reviews of ISA detentions by the courts to purely procedural grounds, as you’ve
just heard Jeannette say. Like how, even in the post-9/11 world where preventive
detention laws have become more commonplace, the ISA continues to lack the
checks and balances found in other countries’ laws.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
What
are some of these missing checks and balances? Firstly, even though the
detainees are not brought before the courts, they are still subject to some
sort of hearing that should comply with due process. In Singapore, we have a hearing
before an advisory board. But this process is shrouded in secrecy and is
completely non-transparent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
According
to a lawyer who has appeared before advisory boards, the detainees and their
lawyers do not get to see the evidence that is presented against them, and do
not have the right to challenge witnesses against them. The decisions of the
advisory board are not published and not even disclosed to detainees. So much
for the right to a fair hearing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Another
critical area where the ISA falls short of international norms, is the maximum
period of detention without trial that is allowed. For instance, Australia
allows detention for only up to 48 hours. Even the UK, which has suffered
actual terrorist attacks on its own soil, only permits detention for up to 28
days.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
in Singapore, preventive detention is potentially indefinite – for instance,
Chia Thye Poh was first detained in 1966, released from ISD detention in 1989
after 23 years, but confined to Sentosa until 1992. The remaining restrictions
were gradually lifted over the years, and he became a completely free man only
in 1998 – 32 years after he was first detained. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Singapore
went through the Universal Periodic Review process last year, which is a
process where the United Nations reviews each country’s human rights record in
turn. MARUAH submitted a paper focusing specifically on preventive detention
and the death penalty. In that paper, we called for numerous reforms to the ISA
to bring it in line with international norms and due process. The objective was
to ensure that even if there is a legitimate security requirement for
preventive detention, the detention is done in accordance with human rights
norms and due process.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Since
then, we have refined our position. MARUAH now thinks that the best way to achieve
that objective, is to simply repeal the ISA and introduce new anti-terrorism
laws consistent with human rights.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
that is exactly what Malaysia has done. Around six weeks ago, Malaysia repealed
its own ISA, replacing it with an anti-terrorism law that limits preventive
detention to 28 days. Yet, the Singapore Government continues to insist that it
needs the ISA in its current form, and that a specific anti-terrorism law would
not work or would not be enough or would take too long to implement. The
Singapore Government continues to make these bald assertions without any real
explanation or justification.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Well,
I can only say in response: “Malaysia boleh!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
As
many of you know, MARUAH is also calling for an independent Commission of
Inquiry into the 1987 detentions. We are asking Singaporeans to sign a petition
in support of this call.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Look
around you today. Today, we see so many of the so-called Marxist conspirators
standing together again, in public. This is Singaporeans’ chance to find out
the truth for themselves.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Look
at the ex-detainees. Go up to them. Talk to them. Look into their eyes. Listen
to what they have to say, but more importantly listen to how they say it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
then ask yourself: could these allegations really be true? Could they really
have been subversives? Could they really have plotted to overthrow the
Government? Could there really have been a Marxist conspiracy, or any
conspiracy at all? And if the answers to those questions are “no”, then what
could have been the justification for the detentions?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I
have always doubted the supposed reasons for the 1987 detentions. And the first
time I met and spoke to Vincent Cheng, I stopped having any doubts. I knew that
I could not accept the story put forth by the Government. I became convinced that
these were just good men and women who wanted a better Singapore. And for that,
I salute them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
1987 detentions effectively killed civil society for an entire generation.
Activists saw what happened to those who were willing to act on their
conscience, and either gave up or went underground. Common people saw what
happened to those who were willing to stand up and be counted, and so they shut
up and sat down.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Government talks about an active citizenry, it talks about getting Singaporeans
involved. They talk about so many things, but they don’t talk about the great
big elephant in the room.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
recent years, ex-detainees, whether from 1987 or earlier, have been publishing
their own accounts about what happened to them. And these stories always
contradict the official version stated by the Government. So far, the
Government has completely failed to respond to the ex-detainees. As a first
step towards coming to terms with the ISA, we need to understand, once and for
all, what really happened in 1987. What evidence did the Government have of a
conspiracy, that led them to order the detentions? Were the confessions by the
detainees coerced? Were the detainees mistreated or tortured?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
A
famous American judge once said: “Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant.”
I ask the Government to shine a light on the events 25 years ago, and once and
for all resolve all the doubts and questions that so many Singaporeans continue
to have. Hold an independent Commission of Inquiry, and disinfect this gaping
wound in our national psyche and soul. That is the only way that we can start
to heal, and finally begin to come to terms with this dark stain on Singapore’s
history, and have an informed national discourse on whether the ISA in its
current form is necessary today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Ladies
and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for coming today. Most of
all, thank you for taking a stand against this law called the Internal Security
Act, that has destroyed so many lives. May we see its abolition soon.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-42864024378909595012012-04-27T09:30:00.000+08:002012-04-27T13:07:04.861+08:00Show us you mean business<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There's been a lot of talk about the Government's proposal for an online code of conduct, and today the Institute of Public Studies organised a closed-door discussion on the topic. It was conducted under the Chatham House Rule, so I'm not going to go into details on what was discussed.<br />
<br />
What I will say, is that the CEO of the Media Development Authority, Mr Aubeck Kam, spoke at the discussion. Given that the attendance included a whole bunch of socio-political bloggers, he predictably heard a lot of very critical and skeptical opposition to the suggestion of a new code of conduct.<br />
<br />
I thought Mr Kam handled the criticism pretty well. He came across as being very thoughtful, earnest and sincere.<br />
<br />
But none of that changes the reality of what we face today. Nobody in the internet community -- at least, nobody affiliated with or actively supporting the PAP or the Government -- believes that, whatever else the code is genuinely intended to achieve, the Government does not hope to use such a code to control or suppress, or at the least moderate and blunt, the storm of anti-PAP sentiment on the Internet.<br />
<br />
Claims about the lack of sheltered online space for moderate views (which is really code for pro-PAP/Government voices, or at least voices that are sympathetic to the PAP and the Government), beg the question as to why they deserve special treatment as compared to others who have dared to stick out their necks to speak their minds.<br />
<br />
Yes, I fundamentally believe that it is better to have more voices speaking up than less. But people have to be willing to stand up for their views -- and I have to question the commitment of anyone who thinks that being flamed and criticised is too high a price to pay, and that growing the thick skin that is really just the ante for online participation today is too difficult for them.<br />
<br />
Those of us who have stood up and spoken up on views deemed anti-establishment and anti-Government bear our own risks in doing so. Defamation lawsuits, sniping and flaming, cyber-harassment, invasion of privacy, police complaints, possible threats to employment prospects, and yes the Internal Security Act -- these threats and risks all come with the territory.<br />
<br />
An online code of conduct will do nothing to protect us from those risks. And yet we continue to do what we do. I cannot speak for others, but I have very limited sympathy for those with such thin skins that they shy away from speaking up just because of the risk that they may be flamed. Compared to what some have experienced and undergone, that almost sounds trivial.<br />
<br />
This Government's actions against its critics have laid the foundations for the skepticism greeting this proposal. After all, it had gazetted <a href="http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/">The Online Citizen</a> as a "political association" in the guise of ensuring that TOC does not receive foreign funding -- thereby also ensuring that, as a practical matter, TOC will almost certainly not receive local funding from the usual donors foundations, and setting a lowly limit of S$5000/year for anonymous donations from local donors. So it is difficult to accept the Government's claims that the code of conduct does not have the collateral objective of silencing or muting critical voices.<br />
<br />
If the PAP and the Government are genuine and sincere that they do not seek to restrict content by advocating such an online code of content, then they can take concrete steps to demonstrate its commitment to maintaining free speech online. There are a few easy steps that the PAP and the Government can take, to put their money where their mouths are:<br />
<br />
1. lift the gazetting of TOC as a political association.<br />
<br />
2. legislate a statutory safe harbour for websites, such that they are not liable for defamatory user comments if they take down those user comments when they receive a third-party complaint -- which is something that the Government-appointed AIMS Committee had recommended back in December 2008.<br />
<br />
3. lead by example. The PAP can itself respect diversity of views. It can commit to cease deleting non-profane comments asking hard questions on its pages, and instead have genuine conversations with critics. It can commit to refraining from defamation lawsuits against critics. It can refrain from tarring-and-feathering its online critics.<br />
<br />
Somehow, I don't see any of those things happening anytime soon. I would be glad to be proven wrong.<br />
<br />
PS. I would accept that there is some merit to the argument that online "witch hunts" are problematic. But the real problem there is invasion of privacy, and not the content as such. The problem arises from the disclosure of names, addresses, photos, occupations, schools, etc., and it is irrelevant whether that disclosure is made online or offline (e.g. by way of flyers distributed and posters displayed near the victim's home) -- the only difference is in scale. While there is good reason to object to such behaviour, the right answer to this is through privacy laws, and not through an online code of conduct.<br />
<br />
PPS. One participant made a valid point about how the absence of a self-regulating code of conduct could increase the pressure on the authorities to rely increasingly on the heavy hand of the law on increasingly marginal cases, in the absence of any alternative mechanism. Something for everyone to bear in mind -- not that it ultimately changes my personal view on the matter.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-61586439084827441002012-02-22T01:50:00.004+08:002012-02-23T18:39:57.223+08:00In defence of Cherian GeorgeI am proud to consider Cherian George a friend. While he is not all that much older than me, I do remember reading his articles in the Straits Times as I grew up.<br /><br />For a large part of his stint in ST, I was perhaps probably too young to truly understand everything he was trying to say back then, since in those days a lot more was said between the lines than in the lines themselves. But I always understood that he was usually criticizing the Government in some way or other.<br /><br />Those of us with longer memories, who are older and remember life in Singapore before the internet and globalisation, know that Cherian has always been independent-minded and unafraid to speak truth to power, however unpalatable that may be to those in power.<br /><br />He continues to do so today -- a careful reading of all his writings will show that he continues to be fiercely independent-minded, always fair and never taking partisan sides. And those of us who know him personally, know that he has paid the price in his personal life, in ways that could have broken lesser people and caused them to give up long ago.<br /><br />So it truly breaks my heart to see clearly uninformed elements on the Internet today, conducting what is essentially a witch-hunt against Cherian. My bet is that these are probably young people without any knowledge or memory of the past, but more dismayingly, without any interest in finding out more about the man and his history before criticising, nay persecuting, him.<br /><br />Cherian is one of the still sadly rare few in Singapore who are willing to risk their reputation and career, to openly and frankly speak their minds about what they perceive to be wrong in the country they love. He runs the risk of censure, and worse, by his employer and the establishment. And yet, look at what some people are doing to him.<br /><br />I don’t want to give any shred of credence to their claims by naming them or linking to them. Suffice to say that correlation is not causation; Cherian writing about TRE coming out into the open and the attendant risks, does not mean that he had anything to do with them being threatened with a lawsuit.<br /><br />And their claim that Cherian’s failure to reproduce the allegedly defamatory comments about Mr K. Shanmugam makes it one-sided, betrays a laughable ignorance of the realities of defamation law. If he had reproduced those comments, he himself ran the risk of getting a lawyer’s letter. Unlike his critics, Cherian operates in the light and not in the darkness of anonymity, where he risks losing everything in a moment of recklessness.<br /><br />Those who make these baseless accusations against Cherian need to understand that Cherian, as an academic working on media issues who advocates a liberal and progressive perspective, is probably one of the few friends and advocates in the establishment that those of us in the blogosphere and social media have today. While I firmly believe that Cherian is a bigger man than many of us, and so he will overlook the tragic irony of those for whom he advocates turning on him, let’s not make this harder for Cherian than it needs to be.<br /><br />Cherian George has given so much for Singapore and Singaporeans. While I know he does not expect anything from us, he certainly deserves better than this.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-27083120553412602822012-02-09T09:38:00.003+08:002012-02-09T11:01:48.511+08:00Every Singaporean really does count<div><i>UPDATED: MOS Wong posted a clarification on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LawrenceWongST?sk=wall">his FB page</a>. It addresses the insensitivity of the comments reported by TODAY, although surely the original comment -- presumably accurately reported, since there was no suggestion of a misquote -- still should not have been made in the way it was made. I am not sure that there is any context in which that comment is acceptable. In any case, the FB post is simply an expansion of the same fundamental philosophy that I criticise below. Let's not forget that it is always harder for people to start work and then go back to school (either part-time or full-time), even though life-long learning is now accepted as a necessity.</i></div><div><br /></div>According to the Heritage Foundation, Singapore has the second freest economy in the world (after Hong Kong). But there is one aspect of Singapore that has always felt to me like a command economy: the way the Government tries to calibrate supply and demand in higher education.<br /><br />On 8 February, <a href="http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC120208-0000077/Further-education-hot-topic-at-ITE-dialogue">the TODAY newspaper reported that further education was hotly-discussed</a> when Minister of State for Education Mr Lawrence Wong conducted a dialogue with around 100 ITE students. Some ITE students asked about the possibility of increasing the number of polytechnic places available to them after graduating from ITE.<br /><br />This is what TODAY reported:<br /><br /><blockquote><i>“Mr Wong said he understood their aspirations but not everyone would be able to pursue a diploma at a polytechnic immediately after obtaining their Higher NITEC.<br /><br />This was due to limited places at local polytechnics and employers' demand for ITE graduates. "If everyone can move up, we will not have enough ITE graduates out there in the workforce," he said.<br /><br />"At the end, it's the number of places we can provide … I don't think we'll be able to satisfy everyone, frankly," he said.”<br /></i></blockquote><br />MOS Wong also warned against a situation of too many degree- and diploma-holders seeking jobs, citing the example of the Singapore embassy in Paris, who had received only applications from degree-holders for a receptionist job. He also went on to explain that ITE was a foundation for polytechnic education, and hence ITE graduates would not be allowed to apply for polytechnic courses unrelated to their areas of study.<br /><br />As Mr Brown put it on Facebook:<div><br /></div><div><i><blockquote>“Translation: “If we allow everyone to be well-educated, who will be the serfs?””<br /></blockquote></i><br />This is the sort of misguided social engineering that leaves a bad taste in many Singaporeans’ mouths. It stems from a fundamentally-misconceived view of higher education as being a means to the end of creating people to fill the jobs out there. And mind you, the sort of logic has been applied in the past, to limit the number of polytechnic graduates who are allowed to pursue undergraduate courses in our universities.<br /><br />Never mind that the Government has a poor record at central planning with higher education to guide Singaporeans towards, or to deter or exclude Singaporeans from, this or that sector. Witness the shortage of lawyers in recent years. Witness also the angst of biotechnology graduates today, who were induced to enter that course of study by the heavy promotion by the Government, only to find that a basic biotechnology degree was, to paraphrase Mr Philip Yeo, only good enough for washing test-tubes.<br /><br />Never mind that nowadays, most people view education as being at least as much about self-actualisation. Viewing higher education solely in terms of an assembly line for workers is nothing less than anachronistic.<br /><br />Never mind that education is almost universally recognized as one of the key drivers of social mobility, and this message tells ITE graduates that they need to look for another way – besides education -- to do better in life.<br /><br />Never mind that deliberately limiting the number of places available to ITE graduates, effectively imposes an artificial restriction on how far ITE graduates can go in their education. Don’t we pride ourselves in meritocracy? Where is the meritocracy in not allowing those ITE graduates who are good enough for polytechnics, to enter them?<br /><br />Never mind that an education is meant to equip one for life, while the jobs out there today will not be the jobs available in 10 years’ time. Without giving ITE graduates who want to do so, the opportunity to equip themselves with skills going beyond today’s jobs, the Government may be deliberately disadvantaging ITE graduates for years into the future, if not for life.<br /><br />Never mind that even if ITE graduates are not allowed to enter polytechnics, many will still pursue part-time private courses at their own expense.<br /><br />Never mind that a diploma-holder who is good will succeed, while a diploma-holder who is not good will not succeed. And that is regardless of whether or not that diploma-holder entered the polytechnic after graduating from ITE, JC or secondary school.<br /><br />Never mind that the Paris embassy example cited by MOS Wong is not at all analogous. France is experiencing economic troubles including very high unemployment, which is the more likely reason why degree-holders are applying for the receptionist job. Correlation does not mean causation, and the fact that degree-holders are applying for the receptionist job does not prove that there are too many degree-holders in France.<br /><br />Never mind that polytechnic courses are varied enough that there will be some, if not many, courses that ITE, JCs and secondary schools do not prepare students for. In which case, why restrict only ITE graduates, but not JC or secondary school graduates, from applying for such courses?<br /><br />Sorry Mr Wong. It’s not just ITE students who disagree with you. I would hazard that most Singaporeans would also be disappointed with these comments. In our hearts, we want all Singaporeans to have equal opportunities, and to support those Singaporeans in going as far as they can. There actually are Singaporeans who truly believe that every Singaporean really does count.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-30554929134055495352012-01-17T10:47:00.004+08:002012-01-17T10:51:41.298+08:00We not stupid, ok?The Straits Times ran a story on <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/The-Big-Story/The-Big-Story-1/Story/STIStory_756496.html">PAP MPs' rebuttals</a> of <a href="http://wp.sg/2012/01/ministerial-salary-review-csm/">Mr Chen Show Mao's speech</a> on ministerial salaries. <i>[note: the ST story is completely available for free, but it may not stay fully available for long]</i><br /><br />Below is the text of what I wrote on Facebook about these PAP MPs' so-called rebuttals.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br />I am posting this instead of working because this article made me so fed-up. It is ok for politicians to engage in politicking, and it is entirely expected that PAP MPs would line up to try to rebut Mr Chen Show Mao (and probably told to do this, when they were scheduled to speak after him). But I cannot stand poorly-reasoned arguments, which are replete here.<br /><br /><b>1. "'The difference between the proposal accepted by the PAP Government and the WP's proposal is that the latter leaves out the principle of sacrifice (and the) discounts to reflect service to the people,' [Zaqy] said."</b><br /><br />An odd conclusion, because the PAP-accepted proposal pays more (on an annual basis) to ministers than the WP proposal. How you get there (the formula) is important, but where you end up (the amount) is also important. If the WP proposal omits sacrifice, then how much more so the PAP-accepted proposal which pays even more?<br /><br /><b>2. ""It would be 'more transparent' to peg ministerial salaries to 'the competitive salaries that the calibre of people we are looking for in ministers earn, or have the potential to earn', said the Minister of State for Health [Amy Khor]."</b><br /><br />Surely Dr Khor is not suggesting that the WP proposal is non-transparent. Whether or not you agree with it (I myself am not completely sold, because we would probably see the MX9 benchmark creep upwards), it is simple and transparent. The WP proposal was constructed using a bottoms-up approach, based on principled reasoning on how ministerial salaries should be determined. You may disagree with the approach, but calling it "less or non-transparent" is misconceived.<br /><br /><b>3. ""Such excitement 'was not because Mr Chen was considered to be a 'median-income' sort of guy, or somehow an emblem of the lowest income quintile of society', observed Mr [Alvin Yeo]. "Rather, with his 'sterling qualifications', Mr Chen 'was proof that opposition parties could also attract the sort of top talent, that one day perhaps may form the Government'."</b><br /><br />Actually, the excitement was because Mr Chen gave up a big job and a big salary to join the Opposition (no parachute for him, no near-guarantee of a win) and then become a regular MP -- with nary a whine or moan about his pay-cut. Until the PAP understands that Singaporeans loved that because it exemplifies the spirit of public service (and the uncomplaining sacrifice that the PAP likes to talk about so much), they will NEVER get it.<br /><br /><b>4. "'Pay should not be the reason for entering politics, but neither should it be the reason for losing talent,' said Mr [Sam] Tan (Radin Mas) in Mandarin."</b><br /><br />Actually, it should be, if the so-called talent in question is so overly-concerned about money, that a salary that can support a very comfortable lifestyle is not enough.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-42325129805151765532012-01-07T16:31:00.001+08:002012-01-07T16:34:18.626+08:00TODAY: Answering the wrong question on ministerial salariesTODAY asked me to re-write my <a href="http://siewkumhong.blogspot.com/2012/01/answering-wrong-question-on-ministerial.html">earlier blog post</a> for them. I basically halved the word count and added what I read in the <i>Straits Times</i> about what Mr Chiam See Tong and Prof Walter Woon had said in 1994 (which Mr Chiam had repeated in 2000).<br /><br /><b>Answering the wrong question on ministerial salaries</b><br /><i>by Siew Kum Hong<br /><br />Published in TODAY on Saturday Jan 07, 2012</i><br /><br />Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ministerial review committee's report has not quelled criticism of supposedly overly-high ministerial salaries.<br /><br />There have always been two types of criticisms of ministerial salaries. Many were technical criticisms focusing on the flaws in the formula's mechanics, which implicitly endorsed the pegging of ministerial salaries to top private-sector salaries.<br /><br />The others, which are political criticisms, decried ministerial salaries pegged to top private-sector salaries as excessive and out of touch, regardless of the exact formula used.<br /><br />I think that the committee gave a good answer, but to the wrong question. The recommendations address the technical criticisms, but do nothing to stem the political criticisms.<br /><br />The committee did well in fixing many major flaws in the previous formula, but it was asked to answer the wrong question. <br /><br />Its terms of reference accepted the pegging of ministerial salaries to top private-sector salaries, and only required it to answer the technical question of how to implement this principle.<br /><br />But ministerial salaries is a political question; i.e. "how do we determine ministerial salaries in a way that Singaporeans can and will support". That's why we got a technocrat's answer to a technical question, when what we really needed was a political answer to a political question. <br /><br />Since we didn't get that, the political criticisms have continued.<br /><br />The Government, and the committee, clearly think about public service in terms of sacrifice by office-holders who would otherwise command top private-sector pay, especially financial sacrifice. <br /><br />But this approach will never be accepted by most Singaporeans, because they see public service in completely different terms.<br /><br />Public service is not a sacrifice; it is not a burden or imposition. Public service should be a calling; it is an honour and a privilege. <br /><br />It is something to be proud of, not something to bemoan and begrudge. <br /><br />And running a country is a political undertaking different from running a company, which is why Singaporeans reject the constant comparisons to private-sector jobs.<br /><br />But ministerial salaries should not be so low, such that only rich people will run for office, or office-holders become distracted from running the country by personal financial needs.<br /><br />One approach would be to set a salary that would enable a reasonable lifestyle. What is reasonable is open to debate, but the objective should not be in dispute. <br /><br />This idea is not new; according to reports, Mr Chiam See Tong and then-NMP Professor Walter Woon had proposed such an approach back in 1994, with Mr Chiam suggesting S$50,000 per month as sufficient.<br /><br />Regardless of the actual number, this approach is more politically defensible as being necessary to allow ministers to do their jobs without undue distractions, while letting them maintain a reasonable standard of living. It will not satisfy all detractors, but if properly implemented, it can win over the critical middle ground of Singaporeans.<br /><br />The issue of ministerial salaries has severely poisoned political discourse in Singapore. Unfortunately, these latest changes have not sucked all of the poison out of local politics. <br /><br />What a wasted opportunity. <br /><br /><i>The writer is a corporate counsel and former NMP. This is an edited rewrite of a post on his blog siewkumhong.blogspot.com.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-84899786884331575482012-01-06T01:36:00.003+08:002012-01-06T01:52:14.333+08:00Answering the wrong question on ministerial salariesBy now, the highlights of <a href="http://reviewcommittee2011.sg/report/">the report by the Committee to Review Ministerial Salaries</a> should be well-known, so I won't rehash them. A search on "singapore ministerial salaries" will quickly bring you up to speed.<br /><br />There have always been two types of criticisms leveled at ministerial salaries. The first category comprised criticisms of the formula itself, that it led to distortions and did not achieve the outcomes we wanted. These are technical criticisms that implicitly endorsed the principle of pegging ministerial salaries at a discount to supposedly equivalent private-sector salaries.<br /><br />The second category comprised criticisms of the absolute amount of ministerial salaries, which are seen as being excessive in their absolute amounts and completely out of touch with normal Singaporeans. These are political criticisms that will persist regardless of the formula used, because they stem from a fundamental perception that the absolute salaries are simply unjustifiably high, regardless of the formula used.<br /><br />Well, here’s what I think: the Committee gave a good answer, but to the wrong question. The Committee’s recommendations will address the first type of criticisms, but will do nothing to stem the second.<br /><br />I actually happen to think that within the limitations of its <a href=”http://reviewcommittee2011.sg/report/#AnnexA”>terms of reference</a>, the Committee did a pretty good job. That’s because its terms of reference required (and perhaps limited) the Committee to <i>“take into account salaries of comparable jobs in the private sector and also other reference points such as the general wage levels in Singapore”</i>, and to implement <i>“a significant discount to comparable private sector salaries to signify the value and ethos of political service.”</i><br /><br />The Committee fixed a lot of the major flaws in the previous formula. For instance, by expanding the sample size of income earners from the top eight earners in six professions to simply the 1000 highest-income Singaporeans, the Committee effectively rendered irrelevant the problem of the 48 top earners being a changing cast while the ministers themselves did not change. Similarly, the new bonus structure is much improved on the previous simplistic reliance on GDP growth as a proxy for the good performance of the Government (and on that, I was reminded of this <a href=”http://siewkumhong.blogspot.com/2008/02/opq-22-january-2008-gdp-bonus-for.html”>defence of the previous bonus structure by now-DPM Teo Chee Hean</a>).<br /><br />But I do think that the Committee was asked to answer the wrong question. The Committee’s terms of reference had already pre-supposed that fundamentally, the proper way to determine ministerial salaries was to compare with private-sector salaries (“<b>how do we calculate ministerial salaries taking account private sector salaries and other guidelines</b>”). In other words, the Committee was only being asked to answer the technical question of precisely how to calculate ministerial salaries based on private-sector salaries.<br /><br />But to my mind, the question of ministerial salaries is actually a political one (“<b>how do we determine ministerial salaries in a way that Singaporeans can and will support</b>”). And so, we ended up with a technocrat’s answer to a technical question, when what we really needed was a political answer to a political question. Since we didn’t get that, the political criticisms I had referred to will almost certainly continue.<br /><br />It is clear from the report, and subsequent public comments, that the Government, and the Committee, continue to think about ministerial salaries in terms of private-sector salaries and sacrifice by office-holders, especially financial sacrifice.<br /><br />I think that is a completely incorrect approach to the question, which as I have said is a political one. This approach will never get true buy-in from the majority of Singaporeans, because they see the Government and ministers in completely different terms.<br /><br />The Government and the Committee see public service as a sacrifice, as if it is some sort of burden or imposition. But I, and I suspect most Singaporeans, see public service as a calling, as an honour and a privilege. It is something to be proud of, and not something to bemoan and begrudge. That is what the spirit of public service is about.<br /><br />The Government and the Committee also see private-sector jobs as being closely equivalent to ministerial posts, as if running a company is very similar to running a country. I think most Singaporeans disagree, because they instinctively understand that running a country is a political undertaking that is fundamentally different from running a company, requiring as it does political sensitivities and skills that are not always or usually needed for corporate success (and here, I am talking about popular politics, not office politics).<br /><br />I do want to be clear: I don’t necessarily think that S$1m a year is excessive. I don’t know for sure what number would or should work, but it probably won’t be a small number. I do think that Singaporeans should be more mindful of wanting ministerial salaries that are so low, that only rich people will run for office. I also think Singaporeans should be careful about cutting salaries so much, that our office-holders become distracted from the all-consuming job of running the country by personal financial needs.<br /><br />So that begs the question of how ministerial salaries should be set. Well, I think the starting point should be that we do not want money to drive ministerial aspirations, but at the same time we do not want ministers to have to worry about their personal finances.<br /><br />One way to do this is to figure out what a reasonable salary for a minister would be, such that he/she can maintain a reasonable lifestyle. And by reasonable lifestyle, I would think that the salary should be enough to comfortably cover mortgage payments for a reasonably-priced landed property in a reasonable location; payments for 2 cars for the family; education for a minister’s children (including overseas education); some retirement savings; and so on.<br /><br />This may or may not be a big number, but then at least it becomes more politically defensible in terms of this being what is necessary to allow the minister to do his/her job without undue distractions and while allowing the minister to maintain a reasonable standard of living. It also completely strips away the effects of the widening income gap, although it does become subject to changes in the cost of living. It represents an approach that can be explained to people and which people can instinctively understand (viz. the need to take care of one’s family).<br /><br />Sadly, this is not the approach that has been adopted for Singapore. Which is why I think Singaporeans will continue to be dissatisfied with the level of ministerial salaries in Singapore.<br /><br />The question of ministerial salaries is a critical one for Singapore. Not just for the obvious reason that it affects who enters into government (and who is attracted to join politics in the first place), but also for how it has severely poisoned political discourse in Singapore. Every time something bad happens, there will be people who will complain about how our highly-paid ministers had once against failed – whether or not this is justified. This cannot be a healthy state of affairs for Singapore.<br /><br />The Government recognized this, hence the Committee. Unfortunately, I firmly believe that these latest changes will not suck all of the poison out of local politics. What a wasted opportunity.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-19228699988459179142011-12-28T09:01:00.001+08:002011-12-28T09:01:00.123+08:00The fiasco that distracted us from the bigger SMRT fiascoI was away for most of December, so I missed the two big recent news stories, namely the SMRT fiasco and Seng Han Thong’s appearance on BlogTV. I’ve been in two minds about writing on the latter incident, but finally decided to do so thanks to the remarks by Law and Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam and the TNP article on Boxing Day. I was away at the time and so feel that I am quite distanced from this entire affair, even given my affiliation with TOC.<br /><br /><i>[disclaimer: I am a member of the core team behind The Online Citizen, but I do not have editorial duties and pretty much see my role as doing what it takes to let the editors get on with their jobs. I weigh in on articles only when asked, and primarily from a legal perspective, although I do tend to give my two cents worth when asked.]</i><br /><br />Alex Au does a good job at a <a href="http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/racing-away-from-racism/">quick recap</a>, so I won’t reinvent the wheel. A lot has already been said, so I will only make three points in this posting.<br /><br />Firstly, nobody can dispute that whatever Seng said on TV, it was incredibly garbled. This is his transcript:<br /><br /><blockquote>“I notice that the PR mention that, some of the staff, because they are Malay, they are Indian, they can’t converse in English good, well enough, so that also deters them, from but I think we accept broken English.”</blockquote><br /><br />As I said, I was away when it all happened, and so I had no idea what was going on when I started being copied on emails within the TOC core team about this incident. I must confess that when I finally read <a href="http://theonlinecitizen.com/2011/12/mp-seng-han-thong-malay-indian-english-inefficiency/">the TOC article that broke the story</a> (which by then had the 2 updates and the editor’s note), I was quite confused.<br /><br />Even when I read the transcript of Seng’s remarks (reproduced in the editor’s note), I couldn’t precisely figure out what he was trying to get at. I had to re-read Seng’s statement of apology (in update 1 in the article), which explained the point he was trying to make, before I stopped feeling like the ADSL guy in that StarHub ad.<br /><br />So my first point is: putting aside all this stuff about whether or not the remarks were racist in nature, the sheer irony of a politician speaking in broken English on national TV about broken English was striking (and fodder for satire, as <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%E2%80%9Dhttp://mrbrwn.co/t5JwdK%E2%80%9D">Mr Brown has shown us</a> in his inimitable way).<br /><br />My second point is about the failure in the article to attribute Seng’s comment about Malays and Indians to SMRT PR, which some seem to be trying to make hay from. Yes, the TOC article could’ve made that attribution, in which case I wouldn’t be writing this particular post.<br /><br />But frankly, Seng’s words were so garbled, it’s not so easy to tell where the SMRT portion ended and where Seng’s own thoughts began. <u>After Seng posted his explanations</u>, we now know what he was trying to say and why he said what he did. But it was a little difficult before Seng explained. Hindsight is perfect, but there’s no hindsight when you break a story.<br /><br />Having said that, my third point is that my second point is actually quite beside the point. That’s because even though Seng was quoting a SMRT spokesperson, <u>he seemed to have adopted the SMRT spokesperson’s point (or rather, what he thought the point was); in any case, he did not contradict it</u>. I personally think this is critical.<br /><br />If you read Seng’s words carefully, you’ll see that he basically said:<br /><ol><li>SMRT person said some staff, being Malay and Indian, can’t speak English well, and hence this deters them from … (I suppose Seng meant to say “making announcements” here, or maybe “making announcements without scripts”)</li><li>We can accept broken English in announcements. (Presumably, Seng’s point was that staff with broken English should have made the necessary announcements anyway.)</li></ol>Seng could only have gotten from (1) to (2), if he had agreed with and adopted (1). That’s because if there is no question of broken English, then there is no question of announcements in broken English. And Seng at no time indicated any disagreement or any hesitation about the reference to Malay and Indian drivers only, so (2) must surely only relate to them.<br /><br />In other words, Seng must have, in his mind when he made the statements, been thinking <u>only</u> of Malay and Indian drivers who cannot speak English well. And he displayed no reluctance to make, or problems with making, those statements on that basis.<br /><br />Minister Shanmugam did acknowledge that Seng did not contradict what he thought he heard the SMRT spokesperson say, but the Minister still seemed (based on news reports at least) to have focused his attention on the TOC article instead of the comments themselves. I would disagree with the Minister that the failure in the TOC article to mention the SMRT spokesperson made the article “false”, because it’s clear that Seng had adopted the SMRT spokesperson’s words (or what Seng thought those words were) for himself.<br /><br />I do wish that the TOC article had mentioned the reference to “SMRT PR”, so that there wouldn’t be all this brouhaha. But that does not detract from the substance of the article. And I think the fact that other PAP MPs came out to criticize Seng, even after reading his explanations, speaks volumes about Seng’s comments. Kudos to the likes of Madam Halimah Yacob and Inderjit Singh.<div><div><br />I have no reason to think that Seng is a racist at heart, and it’s good that Seng explained things quickly and apologized to Singaporeans. I had been a little reluctant to post on this because of that. But I wanted to give the perspective of someone who was distanced from the events as they unfolded, and to do some justice to the hardworking editorial team at TOC. After all, nobody seems to disagree that this was an important story that TOC broke.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-44508871895663346002011-08-23T13:06:00.000+08:002011-08-23T13:06:00.344+08:00Face to Face 2 challenged all preconceived beliefs about the Presidential CandidatesThis first appeared on <a href="http://theonlinecitizen.com/2011/08/face-to-face-2-challenged-all-preconceived-beliefs-about-the-presidential-candidates/">The Online Citizen</a> on 22 August 2011 (and I take no credit for, and am not guilty of the clunky headline!).
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<br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Face to Face 2 challenged all preconceived beliefs about the Presidential Candidates</span>
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<br />by Siew Kum Hong
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<br />Viswa Sadasivan asked me if it was ok to start. It was 8.35pm, about 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled start-time for filming. The four Presidential candidates were seated, the crowd had introduced themselves, and Viswa the moderator was raring to go. All eyes turned to me.
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<br />I gave Viswa two thumbs up, and the cameras started rolling.
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<br />It was The Online Citizen’s Face to Face 2, a studio discussion with the four Presidential candidates. I was not part of TOC when it organised the first Face to Face with political parties. This time round, I helped out in the organisation – and am very glad to have been part of such a special event.
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<br />We made a special effort in selecting the audience. We wanted an audience that was consistent with TOC’s DNA, and so we had academics as well as activists like Alex Au and representatives from groups like AWARE, the Challenged People’s Alliance Network, Function 8, MARUAH and We Believe in Second Chances.
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<br />But we also wanted to make sure that the views of ordinary Singaporeans were reflected, and so we had a cross-section of Singaporeans including young adults, a retiree, a civil servant, a taxi driver, a journalist-turned-real estate agent, and a lecturer. I think we did well in terms of presenting a balanced, diverse and representative audience that also reflected TOC’s values.
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<br />The heated exchange between Mr Tan Jee Say and Dr Tony Tan has predictably grabbed headlines. The forum has also focused attention on the Internal Security Act, much in keeping with TOC’s DNA. But here are some other nuggets about the candidates that caught my attention.
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<br />I noted with interest Dr Tan Cheng Bock’s description of homosexuality as a “lifestyle choice”. I was surprised by his comment that women had to obtain their husbands’ “permission” to enter politics.
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<br />And I was taken aback by his firm “yes”, in response to Viswa’s question about whether he would resign as President if he had a strong disagreement with the Government. After all, Dr Tan Cheng Bock points to his criticisms of the Government when he was an MP as examples of his independence, and yet he did not resign then; were those disagreements not strong?
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<br />More importantly, if the people have elected you as their President, would you not be letting Singaporeans down if you resigned in the face of disagreement instead of sticking to your guns and pushing on?
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<br />As for Mr Tan Jee Say, I was struck by his passion and conviction. I particularly liked his clear and consistent positions on the death penaty and the ISA. But his outburst when interrupted by Dr Tony Tan concerns me. I want a passionate President who can inspire Singaporeans, but I also want a presidential President who can fulfil the ceremonial duties of the post.
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<br />Dr Tony Tan’s courage in agreeing to participate in the forum will be under-appreciated, but must nevertheless be acknowledged. It would not have been surprising if he had decliend our invitation; after all, the People’s Action Party did not turn up at TOC’s first Face to Face forum either. So kudos to Dr Tony Tan for wanting to engage with TOC’s audience in the first place.
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<br />I also consider myself fortunate to observe a touching moment shared by Dr Tony Tan and his wife, just before the second half of the forum began. He had just returned from the washroom, and she went up to him and put her arms around him and asked if he was all right; he answered yes.
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<br />These personal moments are an important reminder that the candidates are persons first and foremost. They have feelings and families too. Debates can and should be robust, questions can and should be tough and probing, but we can and should remain civil and respectful. And I think the Face to Face 2 forum checked all of those boxes.
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<br />But something about Dr Tony Tan’s statement that he could not discuss the 1987 ISA detentions nagged at me, and it only crystallised the morning after the forum. He cited the Official Secrets Act as the reason why he could not comment; but the OSA did not seem to prevent Dr Tony Tan from disclosing that he had disagreed with the graduate mothers scheme and that he had successfully persuaded his Cabinet colleagues to reverse the policy when he became Education Minister.
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<br />That being the case, surely Dr Tony Tan should be able to tell us whether he had disagreed with the 1987 detentions, and whether he had sought to persuade his Cabinet colleagues not to proceed with the detentions. The 1987 detentions were a Cabinet decision, just like the graduate mothers scheme; so if his personal disagreement with the decision on the graduate mothers scheme, as well as the fact that he had argued against it in Cabinet, can be shared today, then surely he could share the corresponding facts in relation to the 1987 detentions.
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<br />Finally, I was surprised when Mr Tan Kin Lian said that he was not familiar with Section 377A, and needed a brief explanation from Alex Au. Considering how it had hogged headlines leading up to the petition to Parliament and the subsequent Parliamentary debate in 2007, this is a huge surprise. Otherwise, he stayed very close to his campaign messages.
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<br />The test of a successful forum is whether it challenges one’s preconceived beliefs. I have no doubt that Face to Face 2 was definitely a success on that basis. Just speaking for myself, before the forum began, I was convinced that I could possibly vote only for one of two candidates. By the end of the forum, one of those names had been replaced by another.
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<br />Who knows? Maybe by 27 August, the names would have changed again. But one thing I know for sure: I am very proud to be part of The Online Citizen. Here’s to more such groundbreaking initiatives in future.
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<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Kum Hong is a former Nominated Member of Parliament, and a member of the core team behind The Online Citizen.</span>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-25627021575363382322011-08-22T23:19:00.005+08:002011-08-23T00:05:32.266+08:00Leopards and spotsIt is as if the PAP is determined to prove that leopards cannot change their spots. The People's Association can try its best to spin the truth, but <a href="http://wp.sg/2011/08/media-release-on-use-of-public-sites-at-aljunied-grc/">the latest revelation from the Workers' Party</a> completely destroys any plausible deniability that could possibly be left.
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<br />The Workers' Party's revelation has to be read to be believed, but in a nutshell, the HDB had the brazen nerve to lease some prime spots for grassroots events -- apparently previously by the PAP-controlled Aljunied Town Council -- to the People's Association. This was done quickly after the General Elections, on 27 May and 13 June, and apparently without any announcement or publication anywhere. On 15 August, the PA informed Sylvia Lim, Chairman of Aljunied-Hougang Town Council, that "bookings by WP will not be allowed".
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<br />This is offensive on so many levels. The HDB needs to explain why it did what it did, and the timing for those actions. Why did it suddenly lease those areas to the PA, after the PAP lost Aljunied GRC, when those areas had previously been managed by the town council? Has it ever leased such areas to the PA in other constituencies ? What was the criteria for choosing those areas?
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<br />As for the PA, this drives the final nail through its pretense of being a true grassroots organisation -- as opposed to a state-funded para-political organisation used as a mobilisation vehicle by the ruling party. If it was truly non-political, it would not issue a blanket refusal to lease these areas to the Workers' Party.
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<br />Many will consider me naive, but I had hopes after the General Elections that the PAP would truly learn its lessons, and become a fair and just party truly focused on doing the right thing for all Singaporeans -- instead of working for the party's own narrow interests. I now see that that was too much to hope for.
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<br />Before May 7, I had privately predicted that GE2016 would be Singapore's equivalent of Malaysia's GE2008, when the opposition tsunami rocked the long-time ruling coalition. I did not see that happening this year. After May 7, I thought that the PAP still had a chance of avoiding an opposition tsunami in the next elections.
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<br />Well, let's just say that the PAP MPs and prospective candidates better have a Plan B in 2016, in case they lose. Many of them will likely need to use it.
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-89080689203070476372011-08-09T23:38:00.000+08:002011-08-09T23:38:01.537+08:00Lee Kuan Yew – giant of a repressive decade<span style="font-style:italic;">This article was first published on <a href="http://theonlinecitizen.com/2011/08/lee-kuan-yew-giant-of-a-repressive-decade/">The Online Citizen</a> on August 8, 2011</span>
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<br />I consider myself a child of the ’80s. Born in 1975, I first became conscious of the world around me in the 1980s.
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<br />Even by Singapore’s standards, there were a lot of changes in that decade. Many of these changes have gone on to become integral and fundamental to what Singapore is today.
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<br />Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) were introduced in 1988. Much of the foundation of today’s transport system were laid, with the AYE, BKE, ECP and PIE being opened throughout the decade and the MRT being officially opened in 1988 (after a soft launch in 1987 with just five stations – I still remember my dad taking me to ride the train from Ang Mo Kio on its first day!). Even the hotly-debated topic today, the Elected Presidency, was first mooted in the 1980s.
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<br />Echoes from the darker events of the ’80s still resonate today as well. The much-hated graduate mother scheme has reared its head again in the pre-campaigning for the Elected Presidency, with questions have been asked whether Dr Tony Tan had supported or opposed it. The likes of Teo Soh Lung and Vincent Cheng, as well as others involved in social enterprise Function 8, have continued to raise questions about the 1987 so-called Marxist conspiracy.
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<br />One man dominated the landscape through all these developments and events: Mr Lee Kuan Yew. He was the Prime Minister through the entire decade, stepping down only in 1990. Mr Lee’s dominance of the 1980s was all the more reinforced with the retirement of his colleagues from the First Generation leadership throughout the 1980s, starting with Toh Chin Chye in 1981, continuing with Goh Keng Swee in 1984 and culminating with S. Rajaratnam in 1988. In comparison, Mr Lee took another 21 years more to leave the Cabinet, which occurred only this May in the wake of the General Elections.
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<br />What then were the 1980s like? If we had to identify one single theme from the decade, what would it be?
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<br />Unfortunately, I would have to say: repression. The scars of the 1987 detentions lasted for <strike>30</strike>20 years; it is only in recent years, that the former detainees have felt able to tell their own stories and ask the questions that have cast such doubt on the government’s official account. The treatment of Mr J.B. Jeyaretnam, the first opposition politician to win a parliamentary election in post-independence Singapore, left a sour taste, with Mr Jeyaretnam being disqualified from Parliament despite a strongly-worded judgment in his favour by the Privy Council. The actions against Mr Francis Seow sent a warning signal to other would-be dissidents, while the muzzling of the Law Society and hence the legal profession continues today.
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<br />These events from the 1980s, followed by the defamation suits in the 1990s and criminal prosecution of the civil disobedience activists in the 2000s, did much to silence dissent and instill the much-discussed climate of fear in Singapore. It is only this year, that this climate of fear has been reduced, if not dissipated.
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<br />Mr Lee was a driving force, if not the main player in the government, in all of these events. So as I looked back at the 1980s, I could not help but think of Mr Lee. He was truly a giant in Singapore’s history. Sadly, he was also the dominant figure in this repressive decade.
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-5289646409964204352011-05-08T01:02:00.004+08:002011-05-08T03:02:37.685+08:00What next for the PAP?What. A. Night.<br /><br />The Workers' Party has now cemented its position as the second party in a two-party system, albeit one that remains heavily skewed in favour of the People's Action Party. The WP will be celebrating its groundbreaking win in Aljunied GRC, and rightly so. The strong results of even its lesser-known candidates demonstrate the power of the WP brand -- indeed, <a href="http://umrresearch.com.au/doc/Singapore_Pre-Election_Study_May11_Final.pdf">a study by an Australian polling firm</a> shows the WP brand to be as strong as the PAP's.<br /><br />What does it mean for the PAP though? How will the PAP respond?<br /><br />First and foremost, the PAP lost because it had lost touch with the ground. It had clearly under-estimated the extent of antipathy towards it by a large margin. Was this because of a failure in the intelligence from its grassroots organisation (aka the People's Association, even though it is a statutory board), or did the leadership simply ignore or overlook the grassroots intelligence? Those of us on the outside will never know.<br /><br />But what we do know, is that it was the PAP's arrogance that had led to its downfall. The themes of government accountability and arrogance played so strongly with the electorate, that the Prime Minister was compelled to apologise for the errors of his Government late in the campaign. But it was clearly too little, too late for disenchanted voters. Worse, only the PM and George Yeo actually noted the problems with the party; it was almost as if all of the other ministers remained, in Minister Lim Swee Say's words, "deaf frogs" to the criticisms from the electorate.<br /><br />I remember that the PM's "apology" speech at Boat Quay was reported in two parts, on the front page and on an inside page. The portion of the report on the inside page was dwarfed by a big article on Minister Mah Bow Tan, quoting him as intending to raise the $8000 income ceiling on HDB flats in response to feedback. Two things struck me: firstly, even though PM had acknowledged the failure to anticipate and prevent spiralling housing prices as a mistake, there was not a single squeak of sorry from Mr Mah; and secondly, the feedback on the income ceiling was not new at all, so why was the Minister considering the change only now?<br /><br />So the real question is whether the PAP has truly accepted and internalised the lessons from this election and the messages from the voters. My own sense is that the middle ground, that big chunk of voters in the middle who decide the fate of elections, largely approves of the PAP as the governing party, but had grown to dislike the PAP and its style. And that is something that is entirely within the party's control.<br /><br />I for one think the PM got it right, when he said that the PAP government was not perfect, and will make mistakes, but must acknowledge and admit mistakes, apologise, and then rectify the problem and try to prevent a recurrence. The problem though, is that the PAP hadn't done that at all in the past 5 years, in particular in terms of admitting and apologising for errors.<br /><br />The PM was spot on when he said that the PAP needed to re-connect emotionally with voters. If the PAP wants to arrest this slide in its popularity, then it needs to be authentic and sincere in engaging with the people.<br /><br />But the early signs on election night were not positive. The two ministers facing the most personal criticism over the past few years have been Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng and Minister Mah Bow Tan. Both led their teams to a 57% vote share, below the ~60% national average for the PAP. DPM Wong described it as "strong support" from Bishan voters, while Minister Mah called the 10-point swing against him since 2006 a "strong mandate". Few would agree with those claims, which ring hollow and false. If they truly believe their words, then the lessons from GE2011 would appear to have been lost on them, in which case the Opposition can expect even more gains in the next elections.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-72036025479826189942011-05-01T01:31:00.000+08:002011-05-01T01:40:07.450+08:00GE2011: what I'm getting up toSome of you may know that I am part of two gazetted political associations, namely local socio-political community blog <a href="http://theonlinecitizen.com">The Online Citizen</a> and <a href="http://www.maruah.org">MARUAH</a>, a registered human rights NGO in Singapore.<br /><br />For the elections, I have been live-blogging for TOC at the rallies that I'm attending -- so far I've been at <a href="http://siewkumhong.blogspot.com/2011/04/workers-party-rally-at-hougang-28-apr.html">WP's Hougang rally on 28 April</a> (phone network died so not much live-blogging there), NSP's rally at Delta Hockey Field on 29 April, and SPP at Potong Pasir tonight. To follow my live-blogging, go to <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/siewkumhong">my Twitter profile</a> or follow #TOClive on Twitter.<br /><br />As fun and exciting as live-blogging is (and it is), it's what I'm doing with MARUAH that's potentially more far-reaching and important. MARUAH are conducting an election watch project. Given the lack of access in Singapore (Elections Dept has so far not responded to our request for access to polling and counting stations) and our lack of resources (thanks PMO for the gazetting!), we've had to scope the project carefully and limit it to what we know we can do rigorously.<br /><br />MARUAH will be doing monitoring how the Straits Times, TODAY and The New Paper cover the GE for the duration of the campaign. The results from the first 3 days are up, please check them out!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-28676735271887237592011-04-29T01:16:00.004+08:002011-04-29T01:34:19.755+08:00Workers' Party rocks Hougang, 28 Apr 2011I made it a point to catch the Workers' Party rally tonight. It's their first rally, and I wanted to see Low Thia Khiang, Sylvia Lim, Chen Show Mao and Yaw Shin Leong in action. I also wanted to see -- for myself -- just how big the crowd is.<br /><br />The second question is easier to answer: it was a massive crowd. See for yourself (photo at <a href="http://darrensoh.com/elections/">http://darrensoh.com/elections/</a>), make sure to scroll all the way to the left:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.darrensoh.com/elections/wp_hougang001.jpg" alt="The Hougang tsunami" /><br /><br />The crowd was so big, that the mobile networks basically all died. After a while, nobody had any service at all. It was sheer exhilarating and inspiring madness.<br /><br />As for the speeches -- Low Thia Khiang was his usual polished self, working the crowd effectively in English, Teochew and Mandarin. Sylvia Lim had a great performance as well, definitely much much more powerful than her speeches in 2006, although I was a little surprised she didn't deliver a Mandarin speech (at least a short one). Her call-and-response style worked very well. Chen Show Mao did a couple of sentences in Tamil, rather more in Malay, and was excellent in Mandarin -- but the pacing for his English speech was a little too slow. And Yaw Shin Leong acquitted himself well, although he kept building the crowd to a crescendo (which was really skilfully done) and then going an anti-climactic "ok?".<br /><br />But for me, the surprise of the night was Gerald Giam. He was frankly quite stiff in the TV forum with the other parties. But he was really good tonight, worked the crowd well, delivered his speech strongly and convincingly and basically rocked the house. Gerald looks to be a real gem in the making.<br /><br />Now that I'm back at home, adrenaline fading and legs aching, caught up on Facebook and much of the material from the other rallies, the question in my mind remains one asked by one of the speakers (Chen Show Mao?): last election, we also had huge crowds, but look at the voting outcome. What will it be like this time?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-55113371215390556412011-04-24T23:38:00.007+08:002011-04-26T01:23:59.664+08:00Disgust and loathing in Singapore<b><u>UPDATE:</u></b> <i>I should have added that so far in this campaign, I have respected SM Goh Chok Tong for his call to keep things "clean" (even though it is self-serving since Tin Pei Lin is in his GRC, but it was the right thing to say), Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng (and indeed the rest of PAP) for not mentioning Mr Chiam's health, and Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang for declining to make any personal comment about Tan Jee Say. I would also express disappointment at the NSP's Yip Yew Weng for perpetuating race-based politics (see the piece in last Saturday's(?) Straits Times about multi-cornered fights) thereby playing into the PAP's hands in terms of justifying the continued existence of GRCs.</i><br /><br />Not much in Singapore politics gets me really worked up anymore. All too often, it just feels like "been there seen that".<br /><br />In fact, nowadays, the things that tend to rile me are not about the substantive issues themselves -- it's gotten too easy to predict the PAP's response and arguments to explain why something I agree with is "not right" for Singapore. Instead, what gets my blood boiling will be questions of (un)fairness and (in)justice.<br /><br />Most recently, it was <a href="http://siewkumhong.blogspot.com/2011/03/this-is-not-what-i-want-singapore.html">the attacks on Tin Pei Ling</a>, who does enough to destroy her own credibility in her own speeches and responses to questions without needing any help from gutter would-be-journalists trawling her Facebook account. Today, it was this <a href="http://www.todayonline.com/SingaporeVotes/EDC110425-0000863/PAP-on-Wijeysingha-video--Candidates-should-be-upfront-about-motives">personal attack by the PAP</a>.<br /><br />The PAP can try all it wants, but the objective here is transparently clear to everyone: to tell the world that Vincent Wijeysingha is gay, and thereby win the votes of that part of the population that will vote based on just this single wedge issue, regardless of any other issue.<br /><br />The rest of the statement -- in particular the allusion to an alleged discussion about "sex with boys and whether the age of consent for boys should be 14 years of age" -- is just outright unjustified mudslinging insinuation that seems designed to imply a linkage between Vincent Wijeysingha and that discussion. If you watch the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz4TiRuhFNU&feature=share">video in question</a>, you will find that:<br /><br />(a) Vincent Wijeysingha does not talk about sex with boys or lowering the age of consent for boys.<br /><br />(b) only M. Ravi talked about that, and he also does not advocate lowering the age of consent for boys. Instead, he seemed to be talking about the age of consent for boys in the context of making a more general point (it's hard to tell precisely what the point is, because the clip has been edited -- perhaps deliberately -- such that what went on before is not shown).<br /><br />[At this point, I hope that those responsible for posting the video and the misleading description about <i>"lowering age of consent for sex with boys aged 14"</i> are aware that they may have contravened <a href="http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_getdata.pl?&actno=2011-REVED-218&date=latest&method=part&segid=1302774357-002615#1302774358-003033">Section 61(d) of the Parliamentary Elections Act</a>. And I certainly hope that the Elections Department will be fair and investigate this case, and prosecute if the culprit is found.]<br /><br />Considering that the constituency in question is Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, a fairly rich area which may well have a higher than average proportion of conservative Christians, this move may yet pay off in terms of votes. But it would fundamentally damage the fabric of Singapore politics, by opening the door to the slippery slope of mudslinging attack politics, where personal attacks are disguised as questions about "agenda".<br /><br />This PAP statement is no different from, and is in fact worse than, the gutter attacks on Tin Pei Ling to degrade the political discourse in Singapore. I did not want Singapore politics to degrade like this, so imagine my dismay that it is the PAP itself bringing politics down.<br /><br />I hope -- no, I trust and believe -- that Singaporeans will see through this PAP statement for what it is. Now that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g21rxbH2nEU">the SDP has posted its response</a>, the ball is really in the PAP's court. Will the PAP retract its statement? Will the PAP apologise? Will the PAP understand that there will be a backlash to this, the same way there was a backlash to their efforts to demonise James Gomez in 2006?<br /><br />Well, we can all let the PAP know exactly what we think of this. Speak up, whether online or in the papers. Ask your grassroots leaders what they think about it, and whether they agree with the tactics apologised. Ask the next PAP candidate who asks for your vote, what he/she thinks about this and when the PAP will apologise. Ask the PM if the Government's stand on all this has changed, since he presumably had the last word on this during the Section 377A debate in 2007.<br /><br />The strangest part of all this is that the political parties, including the PAP, have historically been discreet on personal lifestyles and indiscretions, <a href="http://journalism.sg/2011/03/30/tin-pei-ling/">as noted by Cherian George</a>. It is unclear if this statement has been endorsed by the PAP leadership, but in the absence of any public dissociation by the party from the statement, we can only conclude that it was. That would mark the PAP leading us to the kind of "First World Parliament" that we know we do not want, namely the gay-bashing tactics of US conservative right-wing politics.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-60061613506390398972011-03-29T21:33:00.003+08:002011-03-29T21:55:25.242+08:00This is not what I want Singapore politics to be likeThis post will be short, because I am on a business trip right now. But I feel compelled to write this quickly before going back to work, because I am that disgusted and upset.<br /><br />The PAP recently unveiled 27-year-old Tin Pei Ling as a potential candidate in the upcoming elections. What has been happening on the Internet (especially Facebook) since has been nothing short of disgusting.<br /><br />Ms Tin is reportedly a business consultant at a big accounting firm, and apparently is married to what would seem to be a high-flying civil servant in a position of some importance. From the news reports I've read, she had been volunteering with grassroots organisations since 21.<br /><br />Some folks seem to have taken it upon themselves, to dig up what they think is dirt on her personal life, in an effort to put her down and besmirch her reputation. These efforts have included personal photos apparently from her Facebook account before she removed or privatised them (and here is an object lesson to the PAP and indeed all parties: <u><span style="font-weight:bold;">tell your candidates to privatise their online presence before announcing them!</span></u>), insinuations about who she is married to and how and why she married him, and claims about her purportedly extravagant lifestyle, so on and so forth.<br /><br />This is essentially a young woman who has taken a huge leap into the unknown by stepping forward as a potential candidate. Her motivations are still unknown (other than whatever she has publicly stated), her competence and suitability as an MP remain to be seen, and she has not said much about her policy positions. In short, she is still pretty much a complete unknown.<br /><br />And that is precisely my point. I would like politics in Singapore to be about the candidates and their views and their competency/suitability as MPs and office holders. I would not like politics in Singapore to become an exercise in gutter journalism. If and to the extent that a politician makes morality and virtue part of his/her platform or public persona, then that becomes fair game as well -- but only then, and not before.<br /><br />I would like Ms Tin to be given a chance to show what she would be like as an MP, instead of digging up all this personal stuff -- things which, frankly, to my mind have been overblown and do not say anything about her suitability as an MP, or even her as a person. She is a 27-year-old professional, not a nun.<br /><br />I find what has happened to be quite offensive and reprehensible (which is why I am deliberately not including details of or links to the comments). It is almost as if people, in their antagonism towards the PAP, are willing to overlook and ignore what is right and what is dignified.<br /><br />The consequence of all this, is that people will be deterred from joining politics, even more so than before. I for one will openly admit that I have thought about it and decided against taking the plunge, in part because of these things. I have been a victim of these whispers. It is not fun. It is not right. It is not what I would want Singapore politics to be like.<br /><br />And so I will not like, comment or share these stories and articles. I will lose, and have lost, some respect for those who pile in with their derisive comments on Facebook (some of whom I had respected before). I will choose to publicly express my disagreement with what has happened and is happening, and my sympathies for Ms Tin.<br /><br />I sometimes feel like we have the government that we deserve. Well, through our actions, we will also get the politics that we deserve. Let's think about what we really want Singapore politics to be like.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com97tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-24130582232237292002011-03-20T11:03:00.001+08:002011-03-20T18:10:03.715+08:00Answering the question you wish had been askedFormer US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara once said: “<a href="http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html">Never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you.</a>” I was somewhat amused at just how blatantly this rule was used in two recent letters to the Straits Times Forum, to completely ignore what the questions that had actually been asked.<br /><br /><u><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why preschool funding is extended only to PCF kindergartens</span></u><br /><br />On Thursday 10 March, ST Forum published two letters asking if, and why, the S$290 million in funding announced by the Government would go only to preschools operated by the PAP Community Foundation (PCF) and the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).<br /><br />In one letter, Yee Jenn Jong said:<div><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">"In my 15-year involvement in the industry, I have not known of any government funding for upgrading the facilities of privately owned centres, so I cannot see how this can lower the cost of preschool education in such centres.<br /><br />There is also no reason for the Government to fund the upgrading of centres run by NTUC and PCF as they have their own fund sources and are usually already paying rent that is below market rates."</blockquote><div><br /></div>In the other letter, Ms Yvonne Lee shared her elation upon learning that the Kindergarten Financial Assistance Scheme (KiFAS) will be extended to grant financial relief to families whose monthly incomes do not exceed S$3500, but was then told by the Ministry of Education that only pupils in PCF kindergartens would be eligible.<br /><br />Both letter-writers queried why government funding should be extended (or limited) to PCF kindergartens, and also called for the funding to be extended to privately-run preschools as well.<br /><br />On Wednesday (16 March), ST Forum published <a href="http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/forum/2011/03/uplifting-pre-school-education.php">a joint reply from MCYS and MOE</a>. These are the pertinent paragraphs from the letter (the rest was pretty much just corporate PR boilerplate):</div><div><br /><blockquote><i>"The Kindergarten Financial Assistance Scheme, disbursed by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS), aims to ensure that children are not deprived of a preschool education because of the family's financial circumstances.<br /><br />The increase in the eligible monthly household income criterion from $1,800 to $3,500 from April 1 will let more families benefit from the scheme's subsidies.<br /><br />Eligibility requires kindergartens to be registered with the Ministry of Education (MOE), be non-profit, secular and in a good financial position to provide quality preschool education.<br /><br />These criteria serve to ensure that assistance is targeted at kindergartens which serve lower- and middle- income households. There are about 240 eligible kindergartens which are well-distributed across Singapore."</i><br /></blockquote><div><br /></div>Nothing <span style="font-style:italic;">at all</span> about PCF kindergartens, and nothing at all about why the funding did not extend to privately-run preschools. Probably not coincidentally, the PCF states on its website that <a href="http://www.pcf.org.sg/viewarticle.aspx?wfc=KINDERGARTENINFO">it runs 247 kindergartens located across Singapore</a>. A cynic would wonder why MCYS and MOE chose to cite the "about 240 eligible kindergartens" statistic, without addressing the question of whether all of these are run by PCF, and if so why.<br /><br /><u><span style="font-weight: bold;">NTUC's "symbiotic relationship" with the PAP</span></u><br /><br />A letter from Ang Miah Boon was published on Wednesday 9 March, noting the recent reports about a number of potential PAP candidates from the civil service resigning to join NTUC and asking the following questions (quoted verbatim from the letter):</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><blockquote><i>"- How is NTUC able to absorb these people? In any corporation, positions are based on needs. Were the positions specially created for these candidates?<br /><br />- Why is NTUC providing candidates only for the PAP? Can senior executives of NTUC stand as opposition candidates? Can one be part of the NTUC leadership and remain an opposition party member? Can we separate these jobs from politics?<br /><br />- Do MPs who work for NTUC take directions from NTUC secretary-general Lim Swee Say, who is Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, in Parliament?<br /><br />- Finally, how many MPs should come from the NTUC? While I acknowledge that the voices of the union members should be heard, I am less certain about the number who should represent the congress in the House."</i></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://uportal.ntuc.org.sg/wps/portal/mediarepliesdetail?contenttitle=NTUC+%26amp%3B+PAP+%26ndash%3B+Partners+in+Nation-Building&contentname=29631400461e7e71b802bdf2261fa80b&keywords=NTUC%2CPAP%2Cpartners%2Cnation+building&WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/wps/wcm/connect/u_portal_content/steaboutntuc/stanewsroom/staforumreplies/29631400461e7e71b802bdf2261fa80b&title=NTUC+%26amp%3B+PAP+%26ndash%3B+Partners+in+Nation-Building">NTUC's reply</a>, signed by NTUC President John De Payva and Sec-Gen (and Minister in the Prime Minister's Office) Lim Swee Say, was published on Tuesday 15 March. It essentially repeated the well-known (and frankly, tired) statements about why it is good for workers for NTUC to be so close to PAP.<br /><br />It also completely ignored and disregarded the questions posed in the letter -- to the extent that it addressed any of the concerns raised in the letter, it would be the implied conclusion that NTUC, being a symbiotic partner of the PAP, would never, ever allow its members to stand as opposition candidates.<br /><br /><div><b><u>Let's just have a honest debate<br /></u></b><br /></div><div>I personally found the responses tremendously disappointing. The letter-writers felt strongly enough to take the trouble to write in to ST Forum, posing very pointed and direct questions. The replies did not do justice to, and to my mind did not respect, the letter-writers. These are valid questions that deserve answers -- but it seems that the answers will not be forthcoming.</div><div><br /></div><div>This outcome does nobody, least of all Singapore, any good. People will speculate about why MOE, MCYS and NTUC deliberately chose not to engage directly, and they will draw adverse inferences. The outcome? A more cynical and disillusioned public, which is understandable but certainly not desirable.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-69301114731549461322011-03-18T09:31:00.000+08:002011-03-18T09:31:00.096+08:00MP Hri Kumar responds to meI received an email from Hri last night -- he mentioned that he had been trying to respond to my last post the past couple of days, but for some reason had not been able to post the comment. He then asked for my help to publish it.<br /><br />Given the length of his response, and also the attention that our exchange seems to have garnered, we decided that it would be appropriate to publish his response as a standalone blog post. I've not really had time to digest it fully, but will aim to respond over the weekend -- since this is my blog, it's my chance to have the last word! :)<br /><br />Hri's response is reproduced below in full, without edits.<br /><br /><hr /><br />Kum Hong,<br /><br />We agree on a number of things. You have met my “extreme” example of an able-bodied person who does not want to work (I have met some, by the way) with another “extreme” - “the single mother supporting two children and an elderly mother, who has to go home after work to take care of her children and mother”. We both agree that the latter is more deserving of help.<br /><br />But where we disagree is this: you feel that no help exists currently, and the children of the single mother will be trapped in the poverty cycle. The truth is that she will be helped, by both the Government as well as private parties. Let me give you some concrete examples. One of things we try our best to ensure is that no child is deprived of a good education, or even a meal in school, because of the lack of funds. So we help poor families with a combination of Government subsidies, COMCARE support, The School Pocket Money Fund and other sources. In Bishan Toa-Payoh GRC, we raised over $3 million last year from private donors to fund community scholarships for children of poor families for the next 10 years. We even visit the homes of those who do not enroll their children in kindergarten (although enrolment is not compulsory) to make sure that this not because of the lack of funds; and if it is, we help them with the fees. The number of children who do not go to kindergarten has now fallen to 1% of their cohort - most of these children are home-schooled. <br /><br />So, it is easy to berate the current system as “punish(ing) the children for the sins of their parents”. But that is simplistic and inaccurate.<br /><br />I prefer our current system which directs help to those who need it, rather than one which purports to give universal and unconditional aid. It actually means much more work for the Government, as it involves examining each case and determining the most effective form of help to give. But I think that is a worthwhile exercise as different families have different challenges and circumstances. What is wrong is for us to simply give public money to everyone who holds his hand out, without proper scrutiny and assurance that it will be effective and reaches the right people. Many taxpayers will object to using public money to support people who can help themselves. Their views are also relevant. <br /><br />I am not suggesting that we have a perfect system. We do not. Where we can, and should never stop trying to, improve is to develop a system which ensures that every Singaporean who needs help is not missed. That is a real challenge. The only way to meet it is to involve everyone, from the Government, grassroots organizations, VWOs and the immediate community. Every Singaporean should feel that he has a part to play in looking out for those less fortunate than him. I think that is how it should be. <br /><br />There will also be challenging cases – like your example of an able-bodied father who refuses to work, to the detriment of his children. I know of a real life example in my constituency. The way we helped was to find work for his wife, and to calibrate our aid so that the children have their needs met and are able to continue their education. We did not “turn our heads away”.<br /><br />So I think we can agree on one more thing – real life does not lend itself to simple solutions like the one you have posed. But I am happy that this debate has gained interest, because it shows that Singaporeans feel strongly about this issue.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950101483476071934.post-34883725091685486942011-03-13T20:59:00.005+08:002011-03-14T23:17:49.863+08:00Response to questions from Hri KumarIt seems that <a href="http://www.parliament.gov.sg/AboutUs/Org-MP-MP-Prof-HriKumar.htm">MP Hri Kumar</a> posted a comment in response to my piece "<a href="http://siewkumhong.blogspot.com/2011/02/room-for-fresh-ideas-on-income-gap.html">Room for fresh ideas on income gap</a>". I missed it earlier but was just told about it.<br /><br />Here is his comment in full:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Kum Hong,<br /><br />How does this idea work? If an able-bodied person decides that he does not want to work, do we all have to ensure that he has a "minimal standard of living"?<br /><br />If he is earning a living, but refuses to upgrade himself, do we pay him the difference between what he earns and the "minimum" sum he needs? Where is the money from the endowment fund going to come from - all of us I presume?<br /><br />How much will such a fund require as a start and how much do we need to replenish it annually? What programs or other expenditure are we dropping to fund it? Unless these questions (and many others) are answered, I am afraid you have wasted a Saturday."</blockquote><br /><br />I guess Hri and I must have very starting points and different philosophies on how (and to what extent) to help those less fortunate than us. Prof Kishore Mahbubani has suggested that the Government has, through its own surveys, ascertained that it costs S$1700 pre month for a 4-person household to maintain a "reasonable standard of living" -- as defined by the Government itself. The question then is whether we, as a society, have a duty to ensure that everyone has that reasonable standard of living (and corresponding standards for households with different configurations), and if so how.<br /><br />I will take each of Hri's questions in turn:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">How does this idea work? If an able-bodied person decides that he does not want to work, do we all have to ensure that he has a "minimal standard of living"?</span><br /><br />In an earlier piece "<a href="http://siewkumhong.blogspot.com/2011/01/beefing-up-workfare.html">Beefing Up Workfare</a>" (published in TODAY on 24 Jan 2011), I had advocated using Workfare (but essentially pumped up on steroids) as the basic mechanism to get working families up to $1700 per month. So I do not subscribe to the idea of giving an able-bodied person, who deliberately chooses not to work, $1700 per month.<br /><br />But as we will see below, this question oversimplifies the difficulties of real life.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">If he is earning a living, but refuses to upgrade himself, do we pay him the difference between what he earns and the "minimum" sum he needs?</span><br /><br />What does "refusal" mean? Perhaps we need to define that. I can anticipate the theoretical construct of an able-bodied person who is the sole breadwinner who works and earns a living (short of $1700), who can find the time to go for upgrading but deliberately chooses not to, because he/she prefers to sit in a coffeeshop drinking beer and smoking with friends.<br /><br />But again, that may be an extreme. What about the single mother supporting two children and an elderly mother, who has to go home after work to take care of her children and mother? Does she have time to upgrade? If she declines to go for upgrading for this reason, is that "refusing to upgrade"?<br /><br />What if the person works two jobs, both of which still come up to less than $1700, and going for upgrading might mean losing this precious second job? What if the person works just one job, but the job is not a fixed 9-5 job (as most jobs are wont to be nowadays), and the employer is not sympathetic and does not encourage the person to go for upgrading courses outside of working hours?<br /><br />Do we penalise these workers as well, because of the possible existence of the theoretical construct?<br /><br />In the Budget speeches, during the National Day Parade and at the National Day Rally, we frequently see celebrations of those workers who have managed to upgrade themselves and get better jobs. Kudos to them. But it would be a mistake to conclude from their shining examples, that all of the others who have not had those successes, had deliberately chosen not to take that path of upgrading.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Where is the money from the endowment fund going to come from - all of us I presume?</span><br /><br />Yes, from all of us. If I were <a href="http://www.suntimes.com/business/4245431-521/carlos-slim-is-the-74-billion-man.html">Carlos Slim</a>, then I would fund all of this by myself. But if we, as a country, purport to subscribe to the principles of the Universal Declaration, then we have to fulfill those obligations applicable to us as a country.<br /><br />In a Straits Times article "<span style="font-style: italic;">Thumbs-up for 'many helping hands'</span>" (March 9, 2011), social welfare policy expert Prof Lester M. Salamon noted that "<span style="font-style: italic;">countries around the world have learnt that the problems of poverty, maintaining health, improving the environment, even fostering culture, cannot be handled by private philanthropy alone. 'They require as well the active involvement of government and the resources that government alone can command.'</span>"<br /><br />He went on: "<span style="font-style: italic;">No country that I am aware of has made the many helping hands philosophy work well yet without the government taking a significant leadership role. Perhaps Singapore will be the first one to do it. But since we don't have much data on non-profits here, we won't know whether it is working or not.</span>"<br /><br />So yes, I think the money has to come from all of us, and I do not see an issue with that.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">How much will such a fund require as a start and how much do we need to replenish it annually? What programs or other expenditure are we dropping to fund it? Unless these questions (and many others) are answered, I am afraid you have wasted a Saturday."</span><br /><br />I'm not in a position to answer these questions -- the piece is meant (or rather hoped) to start a conversation, a debate, ideally a process. But the answers to these questions can be developed along the way.<br /><br />I also don't understand why it is necessary to have all (or even most of) the answers in place before something can be considered; after all, even the Government conducts public consultations on proposed policies, presumably because the Government doesn't already have all the answers (otherwise it would be a wayang, would it not?). When MPs make speeches and propose policies, they also do not purport to offer complete solutions with all questions before making these suggestions.<br /><br />So no, I don't feel like I had wasted that Saturday.<br /><br />Since Hri has posed some questions, I have some of my own.<br /><br />I agree that an able-bodied person may deliberately choose not to work, and we can then validly decide not to support him/her -- people have the right to choose, but they should also be prepared to live with the consequences of their choices.<br /><br />But what about the others who are also impacted by those choices, but have no influence over it? If the able-bodied father of two children deliberately chooses <u>not</u> to work, and the mother is for some reason unable to work, then do we simply turn our heads away and ignore the children's and the mother's suffering? If the mother is able to work, but is not able to make enough to meet that $1700 per month standard, then do we nevertheless punish her and her children for the father's choices?<br /><br />Do we ignore our duty to give the next generation the chance to succeed, and thereby punish them to a vicious cycle of poverty? Do we punish the children for the sins of their parents? Because punishment is exactly what it would be, if we have the power to help but decide not to -- because the father made the wrong decision. For all of the Government's rhetoric on personal responsibility and self-sufficiency, we hardly hear anything said about ensuring that the parents' sins are not visited on the children.<br /><br />Yes, simple questions have clear, easy answers. But real life usually does not lend itself to simple questions like the ones posed to me above.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11