Scary Thought #3

Scary Thought #3

Tin Pei Ling, at 27-years old, could be receiving state pension for life if she wins two-consecutive terms as MP. She could walkover win the 2011 and 2016 General Elections, and lose the 2021 General Elections, and still received life pension when she reaches 55 years old.

In other words, all she need to do is to be an Walkover MP for the next 10 years – she will still be only 37 – and then wait to receive her life pension when she reaches 55.

Would you want to pay her for 30+ years for doing absolutely nothing?

Congratulations, Mr Koo!

Mr Koo Tsai Kee, Member of Parliament for Tanjong Pagar GRC is retiring. I would like to offer him my heartiest congratulations. He’s been MP for 20 years – since his maiden foray into electoral politics in 1991.

I am congratulating Mr Koo for doing what – as far as I can see – no other MP has done. This is why I find the rather toned-down announcement of his retirement and the inconspicuous reports by the media has done him a great disservice.

So, what is it that this great man has done or achieved?

Mr Koo is the only MP who has – in all of his 20 years as MP – never won a single election outright.

More remarkable is because he has never fought an election, he also has never won a single vote.

No one in Tanjong Pagar had to cast a single vote for him – in all of 20 years.

1991. 1997. 2001. 2006.

All walkovers uncontested.

It is indeed, whichever way you look at it, an astounding achievement.

Mr Koo has singlehandedly demonstrated what it means to be a successful “Walkover MP”.

The Straits Times, in its own small and humble way, tried to pay a well-deserved tribute to Mr Koo by telling us that “he has served residents in two wards in the GRC: his own Tiong Bahru ward as well as Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s Tanjong Pagar ward, where he stands in at Mr Lee’s Meet the People sessions.“

You may have stood in at MM Lee’s MPS’s but remember, its his coattails which you have hung on for two decades.

Even so, and just for “standing in” at MM Lee’s MPS’s, this alone deserves recognition.

Mr Koo is also Minister of State (MOS) for Defence. Which means he bags home some S$1.2 to S$1.6 million a year? At S$15,000 a month as MP and that insane salary as MOS, Mr Koo can retire happy – and very rich indeed.

Not a bad deal for not having to contest any elections ever, eh?

Well done, Mr Koo! I salute you! And I also salute the miracle of the GRC system!

For the record – and I mean, record – here’s a tribute to your achievements:

Why so mean? Here’s why

The New Paper’s front page on 31 March 2011 asks: “Why so mean?”. The question relates to the attacks on new PAP candidate, 27-year old Tin Pei Ling.

The answer to the question is manifold. But I will stick to one which I thinks is relevant.

The PAP Government, over the 53 years it has been in power, is not known for its magnanimity or grace. Lee Kuan Yew, of course, can be held responsible for this, being as he was the one who sat on the throne, and still is the man behind the one who sits on the throne.

Lee Kuan Yew’s influence, make no mistake, runs deep and wide in the PAP and the government. It is thus without a doubt that his ways influence and are practised by the lower-rungs in the government. Anyone who thinks otherwise must be completely naive.

Lee Kuan Yew’s influence too spreads far and wide in Singapore society. Indeed, many hold him up as some sort of demi-god, and fall to their feet at his very presence.

With this in context, lets take a look at some of the things Lee Kuan Yew has said about some people whom he dislikes or has – evidently – utter contempt for.

Maid carry NSman’s backpack, Chok Tong carry general

So, Goh Chok Tong has got his wish – a “strong candidate” to succeed him in Marine Parade one day.

Brigadier General Tan Chuan Jin was posted to Marine Parade GRC to be an “understudy” of Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong. All well and fine. Succession. Good. Army general. Good. Marine Parade renewal. Good.

Then I realised this simple thing: BG Tan is an SAF general – you know, that kind who is suppose to lead from the front in a battle. The kind who is expected to face the devil, so to speak, face to face. The kind who is suppose to lay down his life.

The kind, you know, which is a perfect candidate to put in an SMC.

But here, our dear BG Tan – a “strong candidate” – is hiding behind SM Goh’s coattails. In fact, SM Goh is as good as carrying the little paper general into Parliament, given that Marine Parade GRC will most likely go uncontested.

A SAF general who is, apparently, seen as unfit to lead in his maiden battle in politics.

And maybe he could be your fourth PM too.

A handbag and a pack of wolves

The attacks on Tin Pei Ling are of course unwarranted, especially those directed at her personal life. But before we go being all self-righteous and condemn these attacks, lets pause.

The attacks are just simply what people have learned, really. For the longest time, it is Tin Pei Ling’s party – and one old man in particular – which had been merciless in tearing the skin off its opponents. Some had their lives utterly destroyed – such as Chia Thye Poh. Over the last two decades or so, vicious and crippling defamation suits were launched and won against its opponents, again crippling and incapacitating these.

So, here now is Tin Pei Ling. In a cyber world age, she as a public figure now, has been stripped naked. Every inch of her is being inspected with a fine tooth comb. The pack is out for the hunt and they are looking for blood. And in some ways, they have found it.

Some are beginning to find this sort of behaviour distasteful and are publicly condemning it and distancing themselves from it.

Tin Pei Ling vs Chen Show Mao – and a very scary thought

Despite what Lim Boon Heng, that minister who has been without a portfolio for some 15 years, has said, the PAP’s slate of new candidates are a dud. At least as far as I am concerned. I can’t remember any time in the past where the scraping of the barrel by the PAP was so pathetic.

And the signs are already there. Of course, the media is sugar-coating the dud candidates the PAP is selling. Desmond Choo? Desmond Lee? Tin Pei Ling? Seriously? When one starts to talk about one’s own sob story in order to gain sympathy, you can be sure the barrel is really empty.

But there is a serious issue here which Singaporeans must consider and consider very seriously indeed.

And it is this: With a complicit and compliant media, these duds are being sold and marketed as people with the genuine stuff. And riding piggyback on senior members into Parliament. This itself is ironic. I mean, if they have the genuine stuff, why would they need to coattail on others?

I am really concerned that someone like Tin Pei Ling, whom I presume hasn’t had even 10-years of working experience, is going into Parliament via the easy and convenient back door.

Janil Puthucheary, please volunteer for National Service

“The question is not where we come from. The question is who is going to be prepared to stay and fight and make this country what it will be, what it can be. I’m that person. I’m staying, fighting. I’m fully invested.” - Janil Puthucheary, Straits Times, 22 March 2011.

When the elections come, you hear all kinds of patriotic bravado spiel from those who want your vote.

Janil Puthucheary is one of these.

He has been in Singapore since 2001. Prior to that he spent most of his time roaming around the world – from Australia to  Britain to Belfast. And of course his native India. It was only in 2008 – barely two years ago – that he became a new citizen of Singapore.

Now, he wants to enter Parliament, no doubt through the back-door called the GRC. Riding on the coattails of older, more senior members is the easy way for people like Puthucheary.

He is barely two-years old as a new citizen and he now wants to lord it over us as an MP.

He talks big about “fighting”, about being “fully invested”. Yet in all those 10 years in Singapore, he never did any National Service. Nor did he volunteer to do so.

Puthucheary, who is a doctor, should realise that all Singaporean male of 18 and above are made to serve National Service for two years. Previously, they serve two and a half years. After this period, they are required to continue to serve as reservists for another 13 years, returning for annual training and being on call anytime the country needs them.

If and when Singapore should require it, these Singaporean men too are expected to lay down their lives.

But here we have a big talker, a would-be MP, who’s never done a single minute of National Service, boasting about how he will “fight” and how he is “fully invested”.

If you are “fully invested”, then volunteer for National Service, or for reservist duty.

Puthucheary is 38. Many Singaporeans older than him are still serving – compelled by law – through reservist.

If Puthucheary’s claim is true – that “I am that person” – then he should put his money where his mouth is and join the rest of us who are ready to lay down our lives for Singapore at a moment’s notice.

What say you, doctor? Are you willing and ready at all times to lay down your life for Singapore?

If you are, then show it.

Else, after spurning the sufferings your father went through,  you are nothing but a hypocrite thirsting for a cheap vote.

Nah, I will not vote for a person who doesn’t care about his father’s sufferings

“I’m staying, I’m fully invested,” the Straits Times’ headline screamed. The quote is from PAP newbie Janil Puthucheary.

But wait. Rewind. Lets play that tape again.

Janil Puthucheary (which I shall address as JP from now on) is the elder son of Dominic Puthucheary, 77, founding member of the PAP, and the Barisan Socialis. The elder Puthucheary was jailed under Singapore’s Internal Security Act (ISA) for 10 months in February 1963 under Operation Coldstore. He was one of the suspected leftists at that time.

Dominic Puthucheary was never tried or given his day in court.

When asked what he thought of the incarceration of his father, JP – quite stunningly – said:

“It was something that… happened in the long history that we were told about.”

Told about? It is puzzling why he said this considering that it was HIS FATHER who went through it. He is not an outsider who didn’t have access to information about what happened to his own father.

Now, this is bad, really bad

If you read the Straits Times’ reports on the three new faces unveiled by the People’s Action Party today (22 March), you would be as depressed as I am.

The PAP, in the lead-up to the General Election, has made two proclamations:

1. Singapore’s fourth Prime Minister is among its new slate of candidates.

2. This new slate is touted as the “4th Generation leadership”, or 4G if you like a soundbite.

Looking at the three newbies just unclothed, the abovementioned two proclamations sound hollow indeed.

We have Ong Ye Kung. An NTUC men who hopes to join the other 10 NTUC MPs in Parliament. What is shocking is that Ong says, when asked if he preferred contesting a GRC or an SMC, :”We can’t… go and challenge the masters.” And of course he says he prefers the GRC. No prizes for guessing why. After all, GRCs were created to “give some assurance to new candidates that they will win their elections”, in the words of one SM Goh.

But the question is: Is Ong the type of 4th generation leaders we want – or that Singapore needs? It sounds to me that he is more of a follower, a conformist, than any leader.

Singapore Parliament – in desperate need of alternative voices

They rushed pass in a whoosh.

I am talking about four things – two of them took place within the hallowed halls of Parliament and two outside of it. And they show why Singapore’s Parliament is in desperate need of alternative, questioning, voices.

The first was the rise in ministers’ salaries and the eight-months bonuses which our ministers will be getting this year. The Minister in Charge of the Civil Service, Teo Chee Hean, made an announcement about it – and that was it.

Not a single question was asked.

The second incident happened at the very last day of Parliament’s sitting. The President’s salary was increased by S$890,700 to a mindboggling S$4.2 million.

Not a single question was raised in the House.