TR EMERITUS

PM-in-waiting Lawrence Wong We are graced by a new star in the firmament. He has been anointed to take over from PM Lee Hsien Loong when the latter steps down. With the appellation of Lawrence Wong he zoomed into prominence overnight and mesmerised the common Singaporeans with his bombastic grandiloquence almost everyday to give them divine guidance to confront the future of malevolent geopolitics and to a celetial path of plenty and harmony for Singaporeans.He sounds like a Messiah of the twenty-first century.and would have the divine embodiment of one. At least there is no logical condition of mind to disabuse this, And it is only fair that he should be honoured to show his prowess. There is no doubt that he excelled among the 4-G leadership to emerge as the future prime minister. It's a great honour and whether this has gone to his head is imperceptible. But from his grandiloquence you cannot escape the feeling that he sometimes talked down to the people and treated them like children. It was quite capivating in the beginning but if repeated too tediously it may take the audience to be really ultra-receptive to continue to listen. Externally Lawrence Wong seemed to be in a mettle. He seemed to be able to tickle the sombre mindset of the inscrutable Chinese to respond in good grace to his obsequious flattery. Of course the path was made easy for him by PM Lee Hsien Loong because of his close relationship with the Chinese leaders. The litmus test is when or whether PM Lee Hsien Loong will step down. It's like the twinkling of a star like the Chinese saying "seems yes, seems no" (若有若无). This is not meant to be in any way a derogatory reflecion of Wong's eminence. I am simply mesmerised by his effusive grandiloquence which prompted me to write this. Wishing him success in your prime ministership.   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. Mr Yoong has granted TR Emeritus exclusive right to his memoir, to be published on an independent website (work in progress), upon his passing.       Read More →

My sister got married to her partner yesterday in an outdoor ceremony. It was a beautiful ceremony. Our patchwork family came together from as far as Australia, Singapore and the USA. On her partner’s side, they came as far as Sierra Leone in West Africa. This was an event filled with plenty of laughter and not to mention good food. I bring up my sister’s wedding because in Singapore finally managed to repeal that most pointless of laws, 377A at the end of 2022. The law, which criminalises sexual relations between men had been something of a controversial topic and it took several years before the Government agreed to remove this colonial era law. You could, I guess, argue that it was a tough act for the government to carry out. While the LGBTQ community in Singapore had argued that the law was discriminatory, there were also the voices of the shrill “conservatives” who argued that allowing homosexual behaviour would lead to the collapse of society. I’ve argued that no matter what one thinks of the LGBTQ community, the law was clearly pointless. It didn’t protect anyone except repressed homosexuals who needed the law to protect them from being themselves. I believe a former Chief Justice and two former Attorney-Generals have said as much even if they expressed it in much better terms. So, I am happy that the Singapore Government has finally seen the obvious – that every argument made in favour of keeping the law has been proven to be nonsensical. However, there was a compromise. In return for lifting 377A, marriage is enshrined in the Singapore constitution as being between a man and a woman. Hence, while the LGBTQ can legally have sex with their chosen partners, their rights to have their relationships protected still does not exist. Should this matter? The Nordic countries for example, are filled with couples who happily live together and have children but do so without that contract called marriage. Surely our LGBTQ community can do the same. Ironically, it was Ms. Stephanie Thio of TSMP Law (Ms. Thio is the sister-in-law of Professor Thio Li-Ann, Singapore’s most prominent anti-gay activist) who argued that we need to start thinking of the protections that LGBTQ couples have. As my youngest brother’s girlfriend said, “If anything happens to him, the hospital isn’t going to let me do anything as his girlfriend. It’s a different story if I am his wife.” In a heterosexual relationship, a wife is legally allowed to take care of a husband should anything happen to him and visa-versa. By refusing to grant legal recognition to LGBTQ relationships, you actually deny an individual the right to be cared for by the person who is likely to know them best. I go back to the example of my sister. When she first came out and told me, I was a little taken back. However, she was still the same person after she told as she was before she told me. Nothing changed because of her admission. She remains the sister I grew up loving. Once the proverbial cat was out of the bag, she seemed happier. From what little I got to see of her relationships, it seemed that she was happier in her “girl-girl” relationships than in her “boy-girl” relationships. She was initially a bit apprehensive about coming out to my mother but everything turned out cool. My step-father, who grew up in the 1950s in the USA (not exactly a LGBTQ-Friendly era), said it best at last night’s wedding. In his speech he said, “I didn’t lose a daughter tonight. I gained one.” I know that the argument is that it’s argued that same-sex relationships are not “normal.” However, what defines normal? My sister’s marriage to another woman involved letting families know. It planning an event and by extension a life together. She wanted everybody to know. My first marriage, which was a “normal” heterosexual marriage between a man and a woman wasn’t like that. I literally shuddered at the idea of planning a life together and I made it clear that I didn’t want my family to know that I was getting legally bound to her. I acknowledged to her that whilst I would try and make it work with her, I didn’t see my life with her as being filled with happiness. So, what’s normal here? You could say that my sister’s marriage is not normal because it was with someone with the “wrong” gender. You could say mine was with someone of the “right” gender. However, if you leave that aside, my sister actually got it right. Her marriage made everyone in the family happy because she was happy. As my step-dad said, he gained a daughter and I gained a sister. In my first marriage, I actually risked losing my family. My mother actually made me promise I’d get out of the marriage if I was unhappy and the family celebrated the day, I took out a Protection Order against her and when she actually saw the light and divorced me. We are often obsessed with the wrong things. In marriage we get obsessed with gender, social status and prospects. We don’t think enough about the things that count like love. If there’s anything that made my trip worthwhile is the fact that my sister’s wedding showed me that love wins and I managed to gain an entire family in the process.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able to meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →

Road congestions are caused by usage not ownership. As an illustration, a person owns five cars but he can only drive one at any one point in time as opposed to five individuals owning the same five cars, all driving at the same time. That being the case, traffic control should be directed at usage rather than ownership. With limited land and growing population, COE, which controls car ownership has outlived its usefulness. It should give way to a distance usage based road pricing system. Technology should not be an issue. It should be less complex than the mobile phone billing system. The distance based road pricing system has several advantages. It provides flexibility; allowing fine-tuning to achieve the targeted and desired effects. It can also act as a moderator to balance the wide disparity in energy taxes between internal combustion engine and electric cars. However, most importantly, it will change the driving habits of people. High cost of cars do not discourage owners from driving. In fact, the opposite is true. This is to be expected as most owners view their cars as sunk costs and not driving often enough is deemed a waste. Things will be different if they have to pay for road usage. Driving aimlessly, changing destinations at every whim and fancy will be things of the past. Road usage will be optimal and more efficient as more people feeling the impact, plan their routes or take public transports. Two basic options can be considered for the implementation. For a clean, neat and free from encumbrances cutover, LTA can refund all remaining balance in the existing, valid COEs and start off with the new distance based road pricing system with immediate effect. The other option is to phase in the new system over a period of 10 years. New cars sold without COE will be subjected to the new road pricing system while existing cars with COEs will be exempted. Cars with expiring COEs can continue to be driven even after the COE expiry dates but they will be subjected to higher rates, escalating progressively under the new road pricing system to discourage retention. In the grand scheme of things, distance based road pricing can be a better system and is certainly worthy of consideration.   PY Wong      Read More →