TR EMERITUS

By Vijay Kumar from Malaysiakini In between the glamarous buildings and shoppings complexes of this city state, there is huge suffering that the world has never seen. Something that the Singapore government or media will try to hide from the rest of the world. And this is the lives of 80 percent of 'true' Singaporeans who live in the republic's Housing Development Board (low cost) flats. I, like many young youths, went looking for a better future in this Lion City of opportunity, After four years of working experience in Kuala Lumpur. It was my first experience outside Malaysia and I was very happy to be offered a job in Singapore with a basic salary of S$3,500. Then, with huge hopes, I started looking for a master bedroom to rent being single. I finally got a master bedroom in Clementi for S$700 a month but only after being rejected by many other landlords for being Indian. The ensuing eight- month ordeal that I spent in this HDB flat really opened my mind to what Singapore is for those who can't earn. It made me ask if this is the type of development that I ever wanted in my country Malaysia. This is the first time that I felt gifted to be born in Malaysia. Anyway, I lived with a family of three (husband, wife with one daughter) who rented out their master bedroom to me while they slept in the common room. It was a three-room flat (but unlike in Malaysia, a three-room flat has only two bedrooms). I did not believe it was the master bedroom that I was staying in until I went into the other room and saw that there is no attached bathroom there. I was given a bed and a mattress and also two fans. Then I noticed that the couple with their daughter sleeping on the floor with a thin mattress in the other room. Not even a fan in that room. Both husband and wife are born Singaporeans and were employed. It was after one month that I realised that the daughter was not going to school regularly and most of the time there would be a quarrel in the early morning between the father and daughter as there was not enough money to pay for the bus to go to school. There were times when the daughter was very sick and father had no money to take her to see a doctor. It was a real pain in the heart to hear a small girl suffering through the thin walls of this HDB flat. It was unbelievable for me to see this happening in this ultra-modern city. It took me another two months to realise that what was happening in this flat was not an isolated case of urban poverty in Singapore. It was every where in those HDB flats. There was a Chinese neighbour (an elderly man) and his son had no money to get a taxi to send his father to the clinic for daily diabetic wound-dressing. I soon understood that poverty in Singapore transcends racial boundaries. The whole family of my landlord got a shock that I own a car in Malaysia. My landlord would keep pestering me every time I come back to Malaysia to bring my car over so that his whole family could go sightseeing in Singapore. In all my life, I never believed people in a developed country like Singapore would ever consider car ownership a privelege. Three months later, one fine day, I came back home and realised that there was no electricity in the house. This time, my landlord did not have the money to pay for the utility bills. I was back in the Stone Age, using candles. This lasted for days until finally he borrowed money from somewhere and settled the bills. My landlord as a person I have known during that period never come back drunk or looked like a gambler. He had to pay for his mother's medical expenses, that much I know. This was the time in my life when I learned what is was like to live in that poor quality HDB flat, drying clothes in the rooms and listening to what the couple talked about in the next room via the thin walls. It was this time in life that made me to think, 'Is this what I want Malaysia to be? For those who talk great or look up to Singapore's success, have they ever come and lived in Singapore like I how I did? Have you seen a HDB flat and how it looks like? Bring your whole family for a dinner using public transport and then rush to catch the last bus. Is this what a 10% growth rate a year is about that we want boast? Does this growth figures mean anything in the first place? Do we want to open our country to expats so that they can progress at the expense of our own Malaysians? Do we want to 'progress' to a level that even our children can't buy a house in our own land? Last, I ask myself. Do we Malaysians look at GDP growth as the only measure to choose our government or are we much more matured than that? Achievement at whose expense? Source: Malaysiakini  Read More →

Contributed by a RP student Dear Students (bcc to All Students), What a tumultuous week we have had since the A-H1N1 flu virus arrived in our campus. While the majority of you have remained calm and focused on your education, and RP thank you for that, we have, on the other hand, been besieged by the media and several calls to close down RP completely. We have been criticised on on-line forums, petitioned by some students and vilified in blogs, some accusing us that we have not acted in your best interest. Believe me, I, too share your strong concerns over health issues brought about by this nasty virus. First, allow me to reiterate my personal assurance to you that the health and wellbeing of everyone at RP is given serious attention to. With this message I hope to give you a better understanding about what we are doing to minimise and contain the impact of this flu virus on our campus and make it a safe place for everyone – students and staff. RP is working very closely with both the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Ministry of Education (MOE) and we are guided by their advices on how to contain the spread of the virus. To date, RP has taken the following measures: All students or staff who were in direct or suspected to have come into contact with confirmed A-H1N1 cases have been given Leave of Absence (LOA) and instructed to learn or work from home. Following the MOH and MOE guidelines, we made this decision to contain the virus from spreading among students and staff. The over 4,500 students and staff who were given LOA will be returning to campus this Thursday, July 2. The infected students and staff, who are currently on medical leave, will only return when they have been medically cleared of the virus. You would be interested to know that most of the students who recently came down with the A-H1N1 flu did not catch the virus in RP but from external sources. We recently learned that one of the first students to be confirmed with the A-H1N1 virus has recovered, and has subsequently tested negative for the virus. We are hopeful that this will be case for all our other students who have contracted the virus. When RP first learned about the infections, we immediately directed our Estates department to clean and disinfect the affected areas (classrooms, corridors, toilets and other public areas). We are still maintaining our cleaning regiment daily. Having learned from the MOH that the A-H1N1 virus cannot survive beyond eight hours, we locked up those classrooms, and by this time, those germs would have long perished. This way, RP is trying to keep the virus out of the campus as contamination is through person to person contact of less than two metres' distance. We are also taking the following actions: distributing free face masks to any student at RP who needs it we ask everyone to take their temperatures and declare them online anyone who feels unwell are asked to go to the doctor or to a nearby Pandemic Preparedness Clinic and have themselves checked everyone has to declare their travel itinerary and most official business travel has been postponed till further notice anyone who has travelled to the high-risk countries as identified by MOH will be asked to stay at home for seven days and monitor their health. If there are signs of flu-like symptoms, they are told to go and see the doctor at once. set up a crisis centre at RP, which is operational 24 hours a day. set up a special intranet website where all the latest updates on the flu can be easily accessed by all students (www.rp.sg/flu). Now, I like to take a minute or two to share with you about the realities of the A-H1N1 virus. ·         First, as the Health authorities tell us, the A-H1N1 virus, like other flu viruses or the common cold, is here to stay and will be part of our lives, going forward. You may catch it in buses, MRT trains, shopping centres, food courts, cinemas, even at home. ·         Second, calls to completely close down RP is not the answer as it begs the question “how long should we close down?” No one knows when this whole pandemic is going to tail off. The questions we have to ask next are: Does that mean everyone has to stay home and not go out? And, will closing down RP for a week or two ensure that our students and staff stay at home and not go out and get infected by others elsewhere? One could easily catch this flu should an infected person, be it a family member, friend or stranger comes into contact. So where do we go from here? ·         Collectively, we have to remain calm and not panic. Some of us may catch the infection at some time or other. If we catch the flu, or any other illness, we will just have to go and get it treated. Unless we are all able to cocoon ourselves in a germ-free environment, which is unrealistic, we have to take it in our stride and manage the situation as life has to go on. I am sure you have noted that businesses and offices in Singapore have not closed; people still shop, eat, travel, work and play. It is very much business as usual elsewhere, and it is the same for RP.       I understand your fears and appreciate your concerns. But we should recognise that this flu bug will be around for a while and which will bother us from time to time and becoming classified as “seasonal flu”.   For those with health issues and cannot afford to catch this virus, the RP Management is sympathetic and understands your needs. Please approach your School Management to work out a solution as we have already made provisions for students with sensitive health issues.   You have my assurance that RP management is doing all we can, within reasonable limits, to keep RP a safe environment for you. We are on the lookout for anyone who looks unwell, and they will be referred to a nearby Pandemic Preparedness Clinic, when indicated. We have dedicated staff working round the clock and we are constantly re-evaluating our options with MOE to ensure that everyone on campus does not face undue risk.       Yours faithfully, Yeo Li Pheow Principal/CEO          Read More →

From The Newsroom Team Tze Char stalls are facing a dearth of willing local workers and two main coffee shop groupings, the Foochow Coffee Restaurant and Bar Merchants Association and the Kheng Keow Coffee Merchants Restaurant and Bar Owners Association, are jointly appealing for the no-foreigners rule to be relaxed. (read article here) The law allows only Singaporeans and permanent residents to work in food stalls, including tze char stalls, at coffee shops. Mr Hong Poh Hin, the first vice-chairman of the Foochow Coffee Restaurant and Bar Merchants Association, said his members are arguing that they need to hire foreigners because Singaporeans do not want to take on the job. Common reasons cited are the long hours, hot working conditions and low pay. Tze char stalls may require at least 10 workers. They earn between $1,000 and $2,000 as cooks, servers and dishwashers. Ten-hour shifts are common and rest days may just be once in two weeks. Are locals really shunning these jobs? Instead of taking the easy way out to employ foreigners, perhaps Mr Hong may like to consider improving the working conditions of workers at Tze Char stalls to make it more attractive for Singaporeans such as higher pay, shorter shifts and more day offs. A monthly salary of just over $1,000 is hardly enough for a Singapore worker to support a family. Furthermore, the long and often odd working hours will have a detrimental impact on family life. Foreign workers are willing to put up with such harsh working conditions as they are dependent on their employers to renew their work permits. Having paid a huge sum of money to middle men to get themselves a job in Singapore, they are completely at the mercy of their bosses. As a foreigner living alone in Singapore, they can easily get by with a meagre salary. When converted into their local currency, they are probably earning much more here than back home. A job going to a foreigner is one deprived for a Singaporean. Lower labor costs for employers will only translate to a greater profit margin for them, thereby benefitting a very select few who have the capital to own and run a coffeeshop at the expense of the masses. Foreigners owe no allegiance to Singapore. They will simply pack their bags and leave for home upon termination of their contracts. The money they earn here will not be spent in Singapore but in their country of birth. What is the social cost for Singapore? We may have one less productive citizen, one less birth and one more dysfunctional family. How can we encourage Singaporeans to have more children if they have trouble even feeding themselves? Can we expect parents to spend quality time with their children if they have to slog like a dog for most part of the day to support the family? In a completely liberalized and open labor market, the Singapore worker will surely lose out to foreigners who cost much less and are willing to work harder. A foreign worker can return back to his hometown in Malaysia, China, or India where the cost of living is lower if he loses his job in Singapore, but what about Singaporeans? Where can we go to? The government can do more to protect the livelihoods of Singaporeans. It will be foolhardy to expect employers to do so. Their bottomline is to maximize profits, they care little about the welfare of their local workers. For Tze Char stalls, employing one more foreign worker will save them a few hundred dollars in wages, but for the unemployed local worker, it will mean a gloomy, uncertain and insecure future.  Read More →