You can run but you can’t hide. The statement is especially true with the rise of social media. We talk behind the back of the government offline; but these buzz aren’t recorded, aren’t searchable and aren’t amplified. With Facebook, things are very different.

The People’s Action Party (PAP) is the leading political party in Singapore. Despite holding a majority of seats in the Parliament of Singapore, the PAP has been criticized for limiting free speech amongst other issues. These criticisms have been flicked off many times by the PAP, and many disgruntled users have started voicing their opinions on a Facebook page, titled “Vote The PAP Out“. Just a week since its launch date, the page has gathered more than a thousand fans.

Mr Alex Tan, creator of the page took time to list out all the concerns that bother him.
1. Over-influx of foreigners

2. National Service disadvantages

3. Sky-rocketing property prices(average 30 years mortgage loan)

4. High medical costs(CPF’s Medishield cover no shit)

5. Low dispensable income(thanks to CPF)

6. Low CPF’s interest rate(2.5%) leaking value to inflation

7. Inflation due to GST 7%

8. CPF unable to provide retirement(a bulk of the fund is spent servicing a housing loan)

9. Singaporeans unemployment rate not declared(could be higher than gov’s data which is mixed with PRs)

10. No heads rolled when Temasek Holdings and GIC lost billions of our national reserves

11. Heavy shortage of subsidized university places for qualified Singapore students

Source: Pen Olson

More than a thousand members within a week!    That’s much more impressive than “Friends of SDP”, which has been around for a while and to date has only 360 members.  It suggests how the man-on-the-street can play a major role in local political activism.  Further, a “lay person’s” gripe may resonate more with the public than an opposition figure’s manifesto.  An opposition member has inherent political agendas while the man-on-the-street only wants to live.

The alleged callous remarks by Singapore’s octogenarian leader Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew din have not gone down well with netizens who termed his views very disgusting and very uncalled for.  Interacting with journalist Mark Jacobson during a recent interview with the National Geographic magazine, MM Lee had expressed that he was fully aware of the displeasure of locals over huge influx of migrants who mitigated their chances to bag high paying opportunities.  Lee reported said, “Over time, Singaporeans have become less hard-driving and hard-striving. This is why it is a good thing that the nation has welcomed so many Chinese immigrants.”

Source: Top News

Temasek Review’s report on interview received a flood of comments from locals.  The National Geographic magazine published the interview a week back but it remains a ‘puzzle’ why the mainstream media has remained mum on the issue for so many days. Perhaps the media has become less hard-driving and hard-striving and need to be replaced.

Lee’s comments also suggest that Singaporeans ought to be as driven as him, working hard into their senior years for the economy and the nation.  Sure sure.  But trouble is, the majority of us aren’t as highly paid, with ‘confidential discretionary components’ to boot.  Be realistic, Lee.

SINGAPORE: Foreign integration, the AWARE saga and the controversy about not nominating the national table tennis coach for an award were just some issues which topped the list of subjects Singaporeans sent in as feedback to REACH.  Singaporeans had a different view of events, which generated much feedback. One woman in the street, Nurdiyana Irnajaya, said: “The hot topic this year was Ris Low and the controversy and criticism that surrounded her.”  Another Singaporean, Shawn Ho said: “The feeling I get from PM and MM is that we still want to encourage a lot of international students from a diversity of backgrounds to come to Singapore to study.”  Kenny Tan said: “I disagree with the way the AWARE saga was played out. It’s not what they do, but how they do that matters.”   But it was the AWARE saga which topped the list of topics Singaporeans responded to on the REACH website. That subject received 1,904 inputs from Singaporeans.

Source: CNA

Looks like the PAP Times has chosen to ignore netizens’ negative about governance and transparency.  What about the concerns about foreign workers and the social worries they bring to us etc?  Even in its street survey, the PAP reporters chose to only report the humless issues. 

REACH is NOT the barometer of the virtual ground sentiments.  Period.  Take REACH’s statistics against Temasek Review (below, as reported by TR):

Site                                          Global ranking                   Singapore ranking

Temasek Review                   106,549                                        650

REACH                                  667,268                                      2,624

And that’s only for 1 site.  Factor in the others like TheOnlineCitizen and the numerous forums that facilitate freedom of expression and we can see how pathetic REACH is.  Alas, it is merely a facility for PAP to kid itself.

Contributed by one of our readers (you can download the original in Chinese).

Every morning 5am, Monday to Saturday, more than hundred of private buses with 44 maximum capacity each will pass through Woodlands custom. These buses ferry workers, mainly female, from Malaysia to different factories in Singapore and transfer them back in the evening.

Looking at the other passageway for motorcyclists, everyday there are more than 30 thousand Malaysian workers crossing the causeway to work in Singapore. More than 10 thousand motorcyclists are also using Tuas Second Link. In the evening, these workers will ride back to Malaysia.

Since before Singapore’s independence, Malaysian workers are welcome to take up manual jobs that Singaporeans do not want. Employers of these workers are required to pay the Government poll tax, from about 300 SGD to 450 SGD per month.

Alright, we shall not talk about these workers from Malaysia as they are taking up jobs that Singaporeans rejected. Twenty years passed, I travel to Singapore frequently. On Dec 2008, I went to Singapore and saw foreign workers everywhere, working at food stalls, food courts and even the public bus drivers are hired from China. Out of curiosity, why there are so many PRC workers, I asked a PRC worker selling dim sum, “Where are you from?”

He was impolite and not even looking up when he spoke, “I am from Shantou, have been here for 2 months.”

I could sense that he was little angry and I was even more curious and asked again, “How much is your salary, should be very good?”

He replied bluntly, “Talking about this makes me boiled, when my agent take the placement fee from me, he promised that the salary will be S$1,800 per month but now I am getting only S$1,100. I have to work 4 hours overtime daily and cannot even earn S$1,800.”

He hit the table and said, “I paid 40,000 yuan for placement fee, which is equivalent to S$8,000. Even if I do not spend a penny, I have to work 7 months to reclaim my 40,000 yuan placement fee, how can I not angry?”

I shook my head and said, “I am sorry to make you angry.”

He said angrily, “Before coming to Singapore, I heard that there are plenty of opportunities in Singapore. But, what I see now is swindlers more than anything else and your Government is a bid liar.”

In Oct 2009, I came to Singapore’s IMM to shop and discovered that many shop promoters are workers from China. Wow! What happened? Singapore has become the second China.”

I chatted with my Singaporean friends at a cafe, I asked her, “Why is there a sudden increase of workers from China? Now, even the promoters who were usually taken up by Singaporeans have now been replaced by PRC workers. I have heard that many Singaporeans are unemployed at this economy downturn. Are the jobs replaced by these workers from China? It is really incredible, aren’t Singaporeans given employment priority? ”

She shook her head replied: “We are really pathetic, I’ll give you some data and you will understand why I am so sad and has completely lost confidence in the future of my country.”

To employ PRC worker, the employer must pay S$450 every month, adding up to S$5,400 per annum, when multiplied by 50,000 workers from China amounted to S$270 million. It is a huge amount of money which goes to the government. Lee Kuan Yew is very pleased that Singaporeans’ money he and Ho Ching have lost in the 2008 financial turmoil can be recovered soon. ”

I was shocked to hear that and asked: “S$270 million a very amazing figure, but what happened to those Singaporeans who have been laid-off?”

 She explained, “A person with no income can apply for employment-seeking grant which is only S$250 per person, but it will only be approved if the applicant has no other family grant. We need to understand this is two different issues. First, employing seeking grant is only S$250 per month as compared to each foreign worker’s poll tax of S$450 which S$200 less. By replacing a Singaporean with a foreign worker in exchange for S$200, the astronomical amount of money lost by both the father-in-law and daughter-in-law can be recovered. How can his son Lee Hsien Loong not exploit Singaporeans? Second, you must remember that, if the unemployed have savings or one of the family members is working, then the grant he applied will not be approved by the Government. The government can even save on S$250, all to be transferred into the pocket of the government ”
 
I am very surprised that Lee Kuan Yew has been describe to be so remarkable, and he is but a tyrant who has been a dictator for 50 years. I mourn for the people of Singapore.

The MOH blog casts the spotlight on the Government’s cyberspace journey and what may lie ahead. While new media has been used previously, for purposes such as party recruitment or personal sharing with the electorate, this latest new media push has centred on healthcare issues and policies.  But despite the positive experience – and the 1,530 MOH Facebook users so far – it looks like Mr Khaw and MOH could remain the lone ministry voices in the blogosphere in the near future.

Source: TODAY

No one really takes the local press seriously.  When it states that the public views something positively, it is very likely that that is how the government thinks it should be viewed by the public.  Hence, MOH’s “positive experience” could be a self-alluded one.

Anyway, a MediaCorp check with six Government ministries found the majority have little intention to follow in MOH’s footsteps just yet.  The Education Ministry, for example, “has no plans to start a corporate blog”. The National Development Ministry, which is “reviewing” its online outreach and engagement efforts, also does “not have plans to blog currently”. 

A certain academic posits that new media may not work well for every Minister or Ministry. “This practice (blogging) may not be suitable for all the Ministers, perhaps because of the sensitive or strategic nature of their portfolio, their personal image and style, or other factors,” he added.

Personal image and style?  Hmmm.  Let’s not forget that ministers are politicians who need to reach out to the constituents, to listen, to emphathise and to help.  The web, in effect, is an extension of that outreach.  If a minister really cannot connect with the ground because of image issues or stylistics, he shouldn’t be a politician in the first place.

JOHOR BARU – The 23-year-old Singaporean woman detained last Thursday after passing through a state checkpoint without having her passport stamped cannot go home, although her husband is willing to pay a fine. Her Malaysian husband is willing to pay the RM500 (S$204) fine but freedom seems a distant dream because he claims the authorities (Immigration) told him they were still undecided about his wife’s situation. Indra was on her way to Singapore with husband S. Evaraj when the incident happened. She was sent to the Pekan Nenas detention centre on Dec 10. Meanwhile, Singapore’s consul in Johor Baru Tham Borg Tsien said the authorities had explained that they were still contemplating charging Indra in court. “We are still waiting for a decision and have yet to meet Indra,” he said.

Source: The Star

It’s been 6 days and our consul hasn’t seen the poor woman.   Elsewhere in the web, some Singaporeans have been speculating that the Malaysian authorities are just waiting for higher offers of ‘fines’.  I guess this is no longer ‘feasible’ given that the case is now reported in the press. 

Inefficiency and bureaucracy on the part of the Malaysians are not good reasons to deny her right to see the consul.  Our Foreign Affairs Ministry officials should start doing what we have been paying them to do post-haste.  Indra’s husband visited her for 10 minutes on Sunday where, he said, she cried and begged him to find a way to get her home.  Maybe if MFA officers had gotten their bonusses this year things might have been different for Indra.

The opposition has not dismissed the idea of using the internet to reach out to the voters on the “cooling-off” day which will be introduced in the next general election. Under the new law, the minimum campaign period will be extended from nine to ten days. All forms of mass rallies, home visits and public display of party symbols will be banned on the eve of polling day to enable voters to reflect “calmly” on their choice.

Source: The Temasek Review

Though PM Lee acknowledged that it would be difficult to enforce the law in cyberspace, he hoped the spirit and principle of the “cooling-off” period would be upheld by Internet users without elaborating on the topics they should refrain from writing or discussing.

“I can’t control several million videos on YouTube. But your website, what you are putting out in your own name, I think that should end on the day before cooling-off day,” PM Lee added.

Well, I can almost be certain that bloggers will continue to write about the campaigning and the controversies that arose in the past days.  Should the PAP refrain from using the Internet then, it will be a gross miscalculation on their part as net chatter could determine the decisions of the fence-sitters.

The web is too huge to be policed and the political costs are too huge for the PAP.  I think this ‘cooling-off day’ will benefit Singapore alright, but not as how Lee Hsien Loong intended.  It allows Singaporeans a day to consume free and adulterated information via political bloggers so that they can make the right choice in the polling booth.

We help ourselves. Don’t expect others to help

Tom Wright painted a bleak picture of Singapore’s property sector going forward at The Wall Street Journal. His article ended with the following:
“I’m yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel [for Singapore],” says Mr. Tan, the high-end broker.
We would expect people to continue to dig the dirt and tell it to [...]



Our skin isn’t as thick as it should be

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) organised a seminar on March 4 to discuss Singapore’s political blogosphere.  Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow and Research Assistant Tan Simin presented their paper on trends observed in the blogosphere.  As reported in the TOC, the researchers identified the following limitations:

The online-offline firewall, while somewhat alleviated by offline [...]



Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew – The answer to the African problem?

Recently, I followed a thread “Democracy and Economic Growth” which started in PoliticsForum.org.   Apparently, members there often question the role of democracy in a developing nation. “During the wave of democratization in Africa during the 90s, many people had renewed hope for the continent, immediately equating newly established democracies to economic growth. Are these democracies [...]



Tell Singapore government: Ask them a question or give a suggestion

We informed people about the “Tell Singapore Government” subsite and have received some interesting reaction at some forums.
See: 3in1 Kopitiam, Sam’s Alfresco Coffee, Singapore Kopitiam, SgForums
Our responses to some of the comments are listed below. If we are not answering some other specific questions, that is because we do not know how.
 

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