Like many Singaporeans, NSP is shocked to learn that the PAP is only giving due recognition to present NSmen while ignoring those past NSmen who have contributed to the safety and stability of this country.

It is easy for the ruling party to say that it is not just about the money. However, the exclusion of those NSmen in Mindef Reserve from such rewarding system has hurt their feelings more than the mere $9000 in question.

When the Prime Minister mentioned about this hand out of $9000 to NSmen, many Singaporeans are happy and glad that the PAP has not forgotten of the sacrifices and contributions that Singaporeans have made towards this country. Even though some of us may not get the full amount eventually, but at least it is a token of appreciation by the government that matters.

However, we do not expect the PAP to miss out a whole two or three generations of older male Singaporeans who have completed their full cycle of National Service. This leaves a bitter taste in them and it seems to indicate that once they have passed their “useful” time to the Nation, the PAP will just abandon them aside. Such move betrays the cold, clinical pragmatism of PAP rule. It also makes us wonder whether PAP will abandon all of us when we become old and incapable to contribute to the country in time to come!

Leave no man behind. This is what NSP believes in as what the Officer Cadet Course would teach all leaders of SAF. This is also the mantra of PAP but it just doesn’t really practise what it preaches.

Goh Meng Seng
Secretary General
National Solidarity Party

By the Singapore Democrats
30 August 2010

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has mastered the art of talking a lot but not saying much. He did this when he spoke on the hot-button issue of foreigners flooding Singapore, a topic that dominated his National Day (ND) Rally speech on Sunday night.

His first statement already is dubious. Mr Lee says that the GDP for the first half of the year was 18% year-on-year and that this growth created “lots of jobs” and as a result “unemployment has gone down”. Not true.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) reported that the the actual numbers of the jobless increased by nearly 25,000 between March and June this year. Seasonally adjusted figures show that around 68,100 Singapore residents were out of work in June 2010.

The number of unemployed did decrease towards the latter half of 2009. But what good is a ND Rally speech when we cannot depend on the prime minister to use up-to-date information rather than spin us using data that’s more than half-a-year old?

Worse, the MOM report shows that those who remained unemployed after six months is on the rise. This means that not only are more people losing their jobs, those who lost their jobs are finding it more difficult to find a new one.

Mr Lee completely ignored this point and nonsensically concluded that the “economy has shaken off the recession” and happy days are here again.

The last time another Mr Lee said this, telling Singaporeans that we were entering into a “golden period”, our economy fell off the cliff triggering the worst economic crisis in our history.

More foreigners, please

The Prime Minister used this spin to justify the PAP’s policy of bringing in yet more foreign workers. We already have 2 million people in Singapore (out of 5 million) who are not Singaporeans.

He tells us that he wants to bring in more foreigners “so that in the long term we can rely less on foreign workers”. Did the PM think that he was talking to kindergarteners?

The Government is still intent on increasing our population to 6.5 million which will mean that foreigners will eventually outnumber Singaporeans in this country. It is this kind of rubbish that makes Mr Lee’s ND Rally speech so insulting and infuriating.

Then as if to make his point that we are relying less on foreigners, he assures us that instead of allowing 100,000 foreigners into Singapore this year, the Government will bring in only 80,000.

Already everywhere we turn see foreigners doing everything. From hotels to hospitals, kopitiams to counters at shopping centres foreigners fill every niche in Singapore. Foreigners have even moved in on the prostitution and gangland scenes.

And the PM thinks that taking in 80,000 instead of 100,000 is going to make a difference? It is like choosing between tweedle-dum or tweedle-dee. The PM must get serious.

See that white elephant?

Mr Lee diligently ignores the white elephant sitting in his Istana living room. He refuses to acknowledge the root cause of the problem which is that Singaporeans – skilled Singaporeans – are leaving Singapore. This country is hemorhagging talent and a major reason is the stifling PAP system here.

If he is serious about increasing productivity and making Singapore a base for talent and innovation, he should ensure that we institute reforms to our tired and archaic political system.

Mr Lee will also not admit that Singapore is using foreigners to suppress workers’ wages in Singapore in order that profit-margins can be maintained. Businesses may be registering greater profits but this is because our workers are getting paid less, not because they are getting more productive.

He exhorts that “Productivity must be the responsibility of all of us” and that in order that we improve our productivity, we must “keep learning and upgrading” and “increase our value and contribution”.

He completely omits the fact that, according to the International Labor Organization’s Global Wages Report 2009, Singaporeans are already working the longest number of hours but seeing their real incomes getting smaller.

Bear with it, it’s for my good

The final straw is Mr Lee telling the people, “So please bear with the larger numbers for the time being.”

For the time being? You mean that foreign workers are only here temporarily and after some time, we are going to send them home and everything will be back to normal? Mr Lee must stop talking to us like we are little kids.

Why must we bear with a policy that is crushing us – both figuratively and literally (in the MRT trains), one that we don’t agree with,  one that is rammed down our throats, and one that will ultimately ruin Singapore? Why must Singaporeans bear with a policy that is only for the PAP’s good?

And while the Prime Minister tells us to bear with the burden, what is he and his ministers sacrificing? By increasing their already bloated salaries?

Mr Lee is putting a chimp in a tuxedo and telling us that James Bond is in town.

By the Singapore Democrats
25 August 2010

The Ministry of Manpower reported that as of June 2010 nearly 70,000 people in Singapore are unemployed. The numbers also reveal that those who are still looking for jobs after six months is on the rise. Add to this is the fact that most of those retrenched are older workers – aged 40 and above.

Behind the numbers are real people who suddenly find themselves out of a job. They have families to feed and bills to pay. They are also the ones who have children in their teens, a time when expenses are the highest.

These are hardworking folks who through no fault of theirs are rudely greeted with a pink slip on day when they show up for work. And while the income stops, the bills continue to pile up. The electricity bill still needs to be paid, the HDB loan still needs to be serviced, and children still need to go to school.

How do these people cope in the six months or more that they are struck down without an income? This is the reason why the Singapore Democrats call for temporary help for these people in the form of retrenchment benefits. This is the Singapore Democrats’ plan:

The Government pays retrenched workers who do not have unemployment insurance 75 percent of their salary for the first six months. This amount would be reduced to 50 percent during the following six months, and further reduced to 25 percent in the third six months.

The payments will stop once the individual finds employment. They will also cease 18 months after one’s retrenchment if the individual is still not employed by then. This will prevent a culture of welfare dependence from taking root. A cap will also be placed on the amount that any retrenched worker is paid.

Under the SDP’s plan each worker will be allowed to reject only up to three job offers in the one-and-a-half years of the entitlement programme following which, as stated, the retrenchment benefit ceases.

Such a scheme will provide workers a cushion when they are retrenched while at the same time encourage them to seek re-employment.

The estimated cost for running such a programme based on the median income of $2,400 a month and on a scenario of 50,000 workers retrenched in a given year is less than $1 billion.

Let’s put this amount into perspective. In 2008 Temasek Holdings and GIC lost $140 billion in disastrous investments. What the Singapore Democrats propose will be 0.007 percent of the amount Temasek and GIC lost. And this will help 50,000 Singaporeans and their families in Singapore instead of millionaire bankers in Merrill Lynch, UBS and Barclays.

Already we are seeing an increase of hardship cases in Singapore leading to more suicides. The Samaritans of Singapore reported 410 suicides in Singapore 2009, up 10 percent from 2008. That averages out to more than one person taking his/her own life in this small country everyday.

There is another upside to such a programme. People who are unemployed are in dire straits and they will urgently spend the money on basic necessities as opposed taking it out of the country for, say, a holiday. The retrenchment benefits paid out to them will make their way back into the economy. This will help businesses.

The idea of a retrenchment benefits programme will be increasingly urgent as jobs will be harder and harder to come by because many of the multinational companies, especially the ones in the US and Europe, are not expanding their investments here because of the politico-economic situations back home.

A retrenchment-benefits programme is needed now. It makes good economic sense. The PAP ministers cannot continue to twiddle their thumbs while Singaporeans suffer.

For a more detailed account of this proposal, click here.

By the Singapore Democrats
19 August 2010

In his zeal to impress foreigners on how efficiently and smoothly he can run the Youth Olympic Games (YOG), Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan has been quite happy to sacrifice the daily necessities of Singaporeans.

Take, for example, the temporary closure of bus-stops. The Land Transport Authority has ordered that buses cannot stop outside the YOG venues such as the one at the Toa Payoh Stadium. Two SBS bus inspectors are stationed at the stop to wave buses on and prevent commuters from getting off. Is such a measure necessary?

Could security concerns be the reason that the LTA is doing this? The answer is no because anyone can walk into the vicinity of the stadium and competition halls. There is no security personnel to check visitors.

A likelier reason is that the organisers don’t want the entrance of the carpark jammed by vehicular traffic which would prevent YOG athletes and officials from coming and going with ease.

But how can this be? Buses typically stop for no more than a minute or two to allow passengers to alight. Can the YOG coaches ferrying the young athletes not wait momentarily for the SBS buses to pull clear before proceeding?

Alternatively, could the traffic wardens on duty not halt the SBS buses to let the YOG coaches leave the vicinity first? Why the need to shutdown down the bus-stop for two weeks?

Has Dr Balakrishnan considered that there are elderly persons and pregnant women who might have difficulty walking from the next bus-stop back down the road to their destinations? What about parents with infants and toddlers?

Grandparents escorting their young charges to take the bus to school were seen arguing with officials at the bus-stop.

Were alternative arrangements made to ensure that they are helped?

Were residents given adequate notice that the stops would be closed? Apparently not because even the bus drivers had to be cued not to stop. If the drivers don’t know that the bus-stops are closed, how would residents be expected to know? The LTA couldn’t even be bothered to explain why the bus-stops needed to be closed.

Such callousness is unacceptable especially in light of the fact that the minister spent $7 million on chartering an executive jet just to ferry the YOG flame and $9 million to publicise the Games. Could he not allocate a tiny portion of the budget to ensure that bus passengers, especially the elderly and the young, are taken care of?

Then there are reports that students who were “selected” to attend the games were not given refreshments and were instructed to bring their own money to buy their own food and drinks.

The Government can build elaborate stage sets which cost millions of dollars to set up to hold concerts that attracted hardly any audience, concerts that were not even central to the Games. And yet it cannot even buy our students drinks?

And while the athletes were treated to buffet spreads, our local volunteers were given meagre portions of rice, fish and green beans. Why such a gulf in treatment? Because they are talent and we are not?

To add injury to insult, volunteers now find themselves suffering from food poisoning. Thirty volunteers were reported to have come down with diarrhea and abdominal pain after they ate the food provided during the triathalon competition at East Coast Park last Sunday.

(The incident happened on 15 Aug 10 but was not reported by the Government media until three days later. Even then, the news first broke on the Internet. Were the journalists asleep? Probably not.)

Recently, Mr Goh Chok Tong took another swipe at Singaporeans, saying that they liked to gripe, that is, to complain about things trivial. It’s another indication how removed from the real world PAP ministers are.

The YOG failings which Singaporeans are pointing out are not gripes. They are serious shortcomings of a Government that has long ceased to pay attention to the grievances of the people.

Singaporeans are not an unreasonable lot. They will put up with and suffer inconveniences if they know that these inconveniences benefit our nation. But many know that the YOG was staged as a PAP-glorification exercise – one, it must be added, that has gone horribly awry.

Dr Balakrishnan wants to show the world how well he takes care of an international sporting event. While he is at it he should perhaps think about taking care of Singaporeans too.

By the Singapore Democrats
12 August 2010

Human rights activist Mr Seelan Palay is serving a 12-day prison term for taking part in the Tak Boleh Tahan (Malay for “cannot take it”) protest on 15 Mar 08 outside Parliament House.

Mr Seelan was convicted together with 8 other activists by District Judge Chia Wee Kiat in Mar 2010. All of them have appealed the conviction. The appeal hearing date has yet to be fixed. Some of those convicted, including Ms Chee Siok Chin and Dr Chee Soon Juan, have served their two-week sentences.

Mr Seelan, who produced One Nation Under Lee (ONUL), is facing another charge of participating in an illegal assembly on 9 Aug 08 together with 10 other activists (see here).

The record-breaking video (which has nearly 100,000 views) has awakened many a young Singaporean. In fact, a few of the SDP’s Young Democrats joined the party after watching ONUL.

The activist is also behind much of the campaigning against the mandatory death penalty. In fact, he has taken with him Once A Jolly Hangman written by Mr Alan Shadrake into prison to read. The book is for all intents and purposes banned in Singapore and Mr Shadrake himself is being charged with contempt of court.

Mr Seelan was taken to court this morning in prison garb and shackled. When the Judge, Mr Kessler Soh, began the session, Mr Seelan said: “Before we begin, I’d like to clarify that I’m in the dock in shackles, cuffs and chains not because I have committed any crime. I am here in this state because of another unjust law administered on behalf of the PAP Government.”

Mr Seelan’s conviction involved the case where the Government-affiliated Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) had also held a protest in the same vicinity and had carried out similar activities as the Tak Boleh Tahan (TBT) protest.

CASE had staged a protest two years in a row including protesting with placards and marching outside Parliament House. No action was taken against its organisers and participants.

Such blatant double standards can only happen in an autocratic state where there is one set of rules for the rulers and another one for the rest.

The TBT defendants raised the issue of illegal discrimination and exercise of police powers in bad faith when they allowed the CASE protest to proceed but clamped down on the TBT protest.

The TBT activists cited Article 12 of the Constitution which states that all citizens must be treated equally under the law.

However, DJ Chia Wee Kiat did not allow the defendants to raise the matter during the hearing and proceeded to convict the defendants.

By Dr Wong Wee Nam
08 August 2010

“If I’d known that retirement was going to be this good I’d have done it the day after I left school!!!”

— Mickey White

Flowers know when to shrivel and die. Trees know when to shed their leaves. Animals know when they can no longer hunt. Even elephants know when to die.

Do Singaporeans know when to retire? Some of them don’t, many of them just can’t and most just don’t know how to.

Those who don’t are obviously the very well-paid. If you are getting an income of millions of dollars from your company, why would you want to give that up? I asked my long-retired mathematics teacher, aged 77, for his view on this and, with a mind still as sharp as his putt, he replied, “This is pure mathematical logic”.

Those who can’t are those who have, all their lives, been so lowly-paid that they do not have enough savings to retire. These people just have to continue working at their menial job, on a pay that is continually being depressed by cheaper foreign labour and praying that they would not be replaced.

For the Singaporeans who do not know how to retire, it is because all their lives they have only known how to work and slog in the name of productivity, but do not how to live and enjoy a life. Moreover how could they when the retirement age is periodically being extended and our venerated sage has advised that retiring is not the wise thing to do?

Happy Retirees

There is a time for everything. Retiring at the right time is not necessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, retirement from a job is not the same as retirement from living. A lion which has lost its teeth and can no longer hunt will starve to death. As human beings are capable of having family, friends and cultivating a variety of interests, they need not shrivel and die when they retire from a job.

For many of the happy retirees whom I know, retirement is just the beginning of another chapter of their lives. My primary two form master’s wife, also a retired teacher, aged 75, is a good example. She wears brightly coloured dresses and dyes her hair in matching colours. Her exuberant expression and vibrant spirit shows how much she enjoys her retired life.

Another is this 85 year old patient of mine who enjoys playing mahjong, helping out in church, meeting friends, cooking and wandering all over Singapore looking for food to eat. She once invited me for supper at 313 (I didn’t even know there was such a place then), knew exactly where to get the desert for me and then insisted on taking the MRT and bus home.

Unhappy Retirees

However not everyone is so fortunate. There are some who had been forced to retired because of ill-health.

Two nights ago, a friend called me up to asked me for some advice regarding a friend of his, aged 52, who went into a coma as a result of diabetes. This person had been unemployed because of a festering gangrene of his foot and he had refused treatment because he did not want to burden his family with hefty medical bills and also having to take care of him for the rest of his life. He would rather die.

I advised them to call for an ambulance immediately and bring him straight to hospital. When the ambulance came, he regained consciousness and refused to be sent to the hospital. To him, there is no meaning in retirement or living a life that is going to be very expensive for him.

Similarly, there are others who have been forced into retirement because they have lost their jobs during the recession or have been displaced by cheaper labour. Because they are middle aged, these people thus find it very hard to get another job again. This group of premature retirees is likely to lose their self-esteem and become depressed instead of enjoying their retirement. To them, postponing the retirement age and asking them not to retire is totally meaningless.

The Government’s Role

With an aging population, the number of both happy and unhappy retirees will grow. For their contribution to the prosperity of our nation, this group of citizens is entitled to a life in this country. To achieve this, there must be a change in attitude towards retirees by society, the government and the retirees themselves.

Instead of seeing them as economic burdens and discarding them as useless economic digits, the government should look to see how it could provide a favorable environment, a good infrastructure and appropriate social amenities to give a life to these people in their golden years.

In the early fifties, the government planned and provided health and social services for the poor and the baby boomers. In the next fifty years, the government should be planning and providing healthcare and social services for the retirees. There must also be social and community programmes to engage the retirees. They deserve all these because it is their blood and sweat in their productive years that have given the country its wealth.

Singapore is always building this hub and that hub. Have we ever thought of making Singapore a retirees’ hub? A retirees’ hub need not be detrimental to the country. It can spawn new goods and services that could fuel economic changes and also result in the development of skills and expertise that can be exported.

The task may be enormous and challenging, but think of the coffee shops in Geylang and the integrated resorts that have benefited tremendously from the patronage of the retirees. We can certainly do with more of other healthier programmes.

There is also the social benefit as well. Instead of encouraging the retirees to migrate or go to JB, such a hub would send a message to young Singaporeans that the State cares for them and it’s worthwhile to stay here for the rest of their lives.

Retirement Is Not a Bad Thing

Retirement is a fact of life. It is not a bad thing at all. It helps in the renewal of leadership, in rejuvenating the workforce and in the removal of stumbling blocks in the system. All workers have a use-by-date whether they like it or not.  An actress, when she is young and pretty, will get all the lead roles. As she grows older, she will act as someone’s mother. Later on she may still get some cameo roles as a grandmother. She should then retire because beyond that no director will cast her as a great-grandmother as there would be hardly any script for great-grandmothers.

However not everyone is aware of his or her expiry date. No one will ever think of himself as a stumbling block. This blind spot is often found in civil and political leaders and patriarchs of family businesses. These people always like to think that without them everything will disintegrate and hence are very reluctant to relinquish their powers. Sadly they often end up being like a goalkeeper who has lost his reflexes, does not realize it and starts to let in goals.  Or they end up like the analogy once used in Parliament: an old 75 rpm gramophone that keeps jumping back to the same groove.

The Parable of Zhuang Zi (庄子)

There is a Chinese idiom害群之马when literally translated means “a horse that is harmful to the herd”. It is used to describe a person who is detrimental to a team. However, it is not easy for most people, especially powerful people, to realize and accept that they could be a harmful horse and retire gracefully. Only a person as enlightened as the Yellow Emperor will be able to do so.

In Chapter 24 of his Complete Works entitled Xu Wu Gui (徐无鬼), Zhuang Zi wrote :

One day the Yellow Emperor set out with six sages to seek the advice of a very wise man, Great Wei (大隗) at Mount Juci （具茨山）. In the wild countryside near Xiang Cheng City, they lost their way and could find no one to ask directions from.  Fortunately they chanced upon a young boy herding horses, and asked him for directions.

“Do you know the way to Mount Juci?” they asked.

“Yes.”

“And do you know where Great Wei is to be found?”

“Yes.”

“What an extraordinary boy!” the Yellow Emperor exclaimed. “You not only know the way to Mount Juci, but you even know where Great Wei is! May I ask you how to govern the empire?”

“Governing the empire is no big deal,” said the young boy. “It is just like your excursion. Move on and leave your worries behind. When I was little, I used to go wandering but unexpectedly I contracted a disease that made me giddy and which blurred my eyesight. An elderly man advised me to mount on the chariot of the sun and go wandering about in the wilds and not to worry about it. Now my illness is slowly getting better and I intend to go wandering again. Governing the empire just means doing what I’m doing. No big deal. Just go with the flow.”

“I know that governing of the empire does not concern you,” the Yellow Emperor said. “Nevertheless, I would like to ask you how it should be done.”

The young boy declined to comment but when the Yellow Emperor remained insistent. So the boy said, “Governing the empire is not much different from herding horses. Just get rid of the horses that are harmful to the herd.”

The Yellow Emperor suddenly became enlightened. Addressing the boy as “Heavenly Master,” he kowtowed twice and retired.

There must be much wisdom in Zhuang Zi’s parable. Otherwise how could it be around for more than 2300 years?

Said Mr Lee: “The PAP makes promises they deliver. The Opposition cannot deliver.”

“If you have a flood, just carefully think who is more likely to get the drainage put right and have the flood alleviated as quickly as possible: A PAP candidate with links to the ministers and Prime Minister, or a non-PAP candidate who has become an MP, like in Potong Pasir or Hougang, and who has to manage on his own?”

“That’s a fact of life.”

Source: Today newspaper, “MM Lee explains his tough stance against Opposition, throws a challenge“, 29 April 2006.

Source: ST, 05 Aug 2010

POTONG Pasir MP Chiam See Tong has named his wife Lina as his political successor.

It means that at the next general election, Mrs Chiam, 61, will contest the single-seat constituency her husband has held since 1984.

And Mr Chiam, 75, intends to lead an opposition team to stand in the neighbouring Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, a five-MP constituency he has been eyeing for some time.

Speaking to The Straits Times at his Meet-the-People session last night, Mr Chiam said he chose his wife as she was his ‘natural successor’.

‘I think she’s very good at bonding with the residents and that’s what wins elections. She gets along very well (with the residents), especially the ladies,’ he said.

Referring to his constituents, he added: ‘They told me for Potong Pasir, Mr Chiam is the first choice and anyone else who stands, they won’t win, except for Mrs Chiam.’

And if she is victorious at the polls, he said she would be well prepared to take over the running of the Potong Pasir Town Council, of which she is now the vice-chairman.

‘She has been working so closely with me that I think the staff even recognise her as some kind of a boss,’ he said.

Mr Chiam is a retired lawyer and his wife was previously a staff nurse. His remarks put to rest long-running speculation on who would succeed him in Potong Pasir.

Some names had been thrown up, including the Chiams’ only child, Camilla, 34, and Mr Desmond Lim.

Mr Lim, 42, is a central executive committee member in Mr Chiam’s Singapore People’s Party (SPP) and the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA).

Mrs Chiam said she and her husband wanted to let their daughter focus first on her life and marriage.

As for Mr Lim, she agreed there was a time when they had groomed him as a possible replacement.

‘But somehow or other, I’m sorry to say, he just didn’t have the X-factor, (or) even the personality,’ she said.

Mrs Chiam and Mr Lim are embroiled in a spat that reportedly began in May, after a proposal for the opposition Reform Party to join the SDA fell through.

There was speculation that she blamed him for the failed merger.

Mr Lim, when asked last night to comment on her being Mr Chiam’s chosen successor, said simply: ‘Congratulations.’

In an earlier statement to The Straits Times yesterday, he said he would support whichever candidate the party chooses.

Mr Chiam hoped last night that ‘party politics will not interfere with this natural trend of events’.

He said his wife’s candidacy would have to be endorsed by SDA members. If that failed, she might run on the SPP’s ticket or even as an independent.

She said: ‘Do or die, I will stand in Potong Pasir. I want to continue the legacy.’

As for Mr Chiam’s plans, he said he was still keen to join forces with the Reform Party.

Noting that the Reform Party had indicated an interest in West Coast GRC, he said: ‘West Coast is quite unknown to me, whereas Bishan-Toa Payoh, we are neighbours and I feel an affinity with them.’

The two parties are still in talks and Mrs Chiam said she had sent a revised proposal to the Reform Party, as well as the component parties of the SDA.

She said the SDA had also approached the National Solidarity Party, which had indicated it might rejoin the alliance depending on the outcome of the talks with the Reform Party.

Mr Chiam expressed the hope that the opposition could work together.

Asked if he would retire from politics if he lost at the polls, he said: ‘I think so. Have you seen a loser come back again?’

Technician Huong Ing Kwong, 54, who moved to Potong Pasir ward two years ago, said: ‘I’ve admired Mr Chiam since he entered politics but I have yet to decide who to vote for at the next election.’

However, babysitter Habibah Bee, 62, who has voted for Mr Chiam at every election since moving to Potong Pasir 13 years ago, said she would support Mrs Chiam.

‘I will surely support anyone from Mr Chiam’s party.’

jeremyau@sph.com.sg

ziliang@sph.com.sg