TR EMERITUS

Singapore requires incoming travelers to observe a 14 day Stay Home Notice (SHN). They are required to be isolated in a hotel room for 14 days. This is to prevent the spread of the covid virus. I find this requirement to be illogical, unnecessary and wasteful. Here are my reasons: a) A person can move about freely in his home country, subject to the safe distancing and masking requirement. b) If this person travels to Singapore, he (or she) is required to observe the Stay Home Notice. c) If he is already infected, he would have spread the virus in his home country. The fact is - he is not spreading the virus. d) When he enters Singapore, he is already tested for the virus and found to be negative. Indeed, he is less likely to be infected than a local who has not been tested. Instead of imposing the SHN on all travelers, we can afford to remove this requirement for people who are tested to be negative. There is a small risk that this person could be infected and spread the virus. We can afford to take the chance and see if it leads to a serious spread of the virus. If it does, we can reimpose the SHN on all travelers. It is more likely that there is no spread of the virus, or any spread is not serious. If this is the outcome, we can re-open the borders and revive travel industry. To play safe, we should continue to test all incoming travelers for the virus. We should not continue the 14 day SHN as it is illogical, unnecessary and wasteful.   Tan Kin Lian      Read More →

The 1943 production of Othello, starring Paul Robeson and Uta Hagen, holds the record for the most performances of any Shakespeare play ever produced on Broadway. One of my Singapore friends who now lives in another country asked me what the winners of high damages do with the money they won. I asked around and got a few answers. I did recall the late Lee Kuan Yew saying that he would donate what he won to charity. But I don’t recall any of the other winners making any public announcements – Goh Chok Tong, Lee Hsien Loong, Tony Tan Keng Yam, Lee Yock Suan, Teo Chee Hean, Ch’ng Jit Koon, Ow Chin Hock, Seng Han Thong, Chin Harn Tong and Ker Sin Tze. I am not sure if this is an exhaustive list. I think the winners would buy grand dinners for all their friends and family members to celebrate their colossal wins or more accurately to celebrate the miseries caused to a fellow human being and worse, a Singaporean. Imagine what diners can eat with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lobsters, exquisite mammals like tigers and elephant parts, exotic greens from the arctic – yaks! But what if they don’t want to celebrate their wins? What if they give to charities? I think it would be a good idea to do so though I wouldn’t think the charities would gloat and tell the world that they had received blood monies. In the present case, $133,000 from Leong Sze Hian or more appropriately, from the people of Singapore. There is something not quite right in sharing such bounties with charities. Firstly, the public knows the hardship and miseries suffered by the losers. Secondly, it seems fake to claim that the money comes from the donors or winners. Thirdly, how does a person’s miseries in having to scour for donations to avoid bankruptcies justify the happiness for these charities? I cannot answer for these charities. Suffice it to say that it would be worse for the winners to keep their bounties and spend them on exotic dinners. I think the principle of awarding high damages to politicians just because they have more status than ordinary folks like you and me is wrong. They have got it all wrong from the day Lee Kuan Yew was awarded S130,000 against opposition politician J B Jeyaretnam in 1979. Politicians in my opinion should only deserve the token sum of S$1.00 if ever they are thick skinned enough to sue or sue in numbers as in the case against Tang Liang Hong and JB Jeyaretnam. Read this commentary by Arm Chair Critic. Shakespeare saw it all centuries ago. Read this aloud and admire his brilliance. CASSIO Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation! IAGO As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. – Shakespeare, Othello     Teo Soh Lung        Read More →

Since Sir Stamford Raffles set foot on Singapore in 1819, it had undergone a dramatic generational progressive transformation to what it s today as a world renowned metropolis. It was under British Colonial rule from the early days but political awakening among colonised people in the word necessitated the British to relinguish power to local politicians. So there emerged two very astute politicians vying to take over from the British. One was a Cambridge-trained lawyer Lee Kuan Yew and the other was a dynamic pro-communist activist Lim Chin Siong who had obviously the imprimatur of the Communist Party of Malaya. With the help of Singapore Special Branch and the Chief Minister at the time Lim Yew Hock, Lee Kuan Yew eventually became the prime minister of Singapore, much to the relief of the British colonial masters. The much-vaunted PM Lee Kuan Yew did a monumental job in bringing Singapore from a third world country to a first world status. But he also had a less human aspect of his persona in the inhumane way he treated his political opponents like Lim Chin Siong, Dr. Lim Hock Siew and Chia Thye Poh. His successor Goh Chok Thong was supposed to be a seat-warmer for his son Lee Hsien Loong but managed to excel and remained prime minister for more than a decade. Lee Kuan Yew's prodigious son Lee Hsien Loong took over and has remained prime minister till today and maybe much longer because the 4G successors are not so promising. It started in Goh Chok Thong's era that the prime minister and his mercenary ministers enrich themselves with millions of dollars as salaries from taxpayers' money. There had been a slight compunction in Lee Hsien's administration by reducing a minuscule amount but the sums are still obscene. Is this what is called a PAP utopia? It may be for the PAP charlatans but do they realise that there are considerable number of Singaporeans who sleep in the open without any shelter. Is this what they call serving the people which is blatantly hypocritical because they are actually serving themselves by dipping their fingers into people's money. Is this not a travesty of the worst kind over the sovereignty of the people's wealth for selfish end? So what is the kismet of Singaporeans as long as the money-minded PAP leaders stay in power? Can we get enough of politicians like Pritam Singh and Jamus Lim to dislodge them? As long as they have precarious-minded electors to suppport them it may take a long time for this to happen, may not even be in our generation, In the meantime the PAP leaders will wallow in their utopia and the rest of Singaporeans, especially those eking out a living, will live a life nearer that of a purgatory. Does this ever evoke any feeling of compassion from our callous million-dollar Prime Minister and his mercenary ministers who wallow in their ill-gotten (no?) luxury? Is this what is called an idyllic version of an equitable society? Do Singaporeans have a choice and could they really be resolute in shaping their destiny?   Yoong Siew Wah   * The author was the Director of Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) from 1971 to 1974. He was Director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in the 1960s, and had a distinguished career in the Singapore Special Branch in the 1950s.          Read More →