TR EMERITUS

As early as 6 months ago, it was reported that the efficiency of the Pfizer vaccine would drop to around 84% six months after the second dose. However, subsequent new studies prove that the efficiency would drop to less than 50%. Since vaccination has been touted as one of the key ways to bring Singapore out of the pandemic, shouldn't the Ministers have acted quickly in deciding on how to proceed with this new fact? It is one thing to push out booster shots, but this is such a 'basic' solution that any fresh graduate could think of it. Do we really need million dollar ministers to come up with such a primitive solution? If they really had any sense of foresight in them, they would have realized that not all vaccinated people would even want to take a booster shot given that many have experienced side effects after taking the second dose. By not setting a deadline for the expiratory of vaccination status, how will this be effective in combating the pandemic? Surely, it cannot be the case where someone gets vaccinated and then remains immune for the next 2 years. And if this person does not have immunity, say, after 8 months, wouldn't he be as infectious as somebody who is unvaccinated? That would be back to square one as we have seen how infectious the virus is. It takes only one person before the whole country can be affected, as seen in the case of the Mustafa outbreak which led to the circuit breaker last year. Now, we learned that the 4G ministers are only considering policy changes after the issue appeared in the newspapers. And to make matters worse, the article was not even from a professional journalist, but from a member of the public who wrote to the forum. Why was this not thought of earlier? It is so laughable that this could very well be a political situation in a third world country. We have already seen lapses after lapses in terms of how this government has handled pandemic, as well as not being absolutely truthful to us - for example, weather our location via the TT app can be used for criminal investigations. If they cannot even get such a basic issue correct, I certainly do not know how these goons will lead us out of the pandemic.   Prabu * Article first appeared on Real Issues in Singapore   .  Read More →

If the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic was a real war, then it is obvious that Singapore would be doomed by now. Touted by PM Lee as the “crisis of a generation” in his national broadcast in June last year, has anyone realized that there is no ex-general or medically-trained politician in the MTF? Is the PAP deliberately withholding their best politicians from this crucial battle for some strategic reason? The Singaporean-Factor: Defence and social cohesion, natured over many years through our collective effort in Nation Building, used to be the bedrocks that define our existence as a sovereign nation. That was when many Singaporeans looked up to our first generation of leaders and granted them the trust and respect needed to govern our country and overcome adversity. Ask any Singaporeans then and they can tell you about our Economic Plan by way of analogies, such as the importance of having a “Twin-Engine for Growth” or speak proudly of our Presidents, and almost everyone show high regards for political leaders like Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, Devan Nair or Ong Teng Cheong. Through hard work, discipline and trust in the leadership of our First Cabinet, we proper as a nation until a few politicians start believing that they are more superior and have been more instrumental in forging our earlier success than the rest of the nation. Absolute Rule – The PAP’s Way Or No Way: But the seed of our self-destruction was conceived just a couple of years earlier, before the First Cabinet collectively stepped down in 1985. Money politics became the new norms when the Pension Scheme for civil servants was replaced by a one-off gratuity while our National Saving Scheme (CPF) was turned into a Retirement Scheme. But for the privileged politicians and their subordinates in public service, their pay scales were revised upward, and upon retirement, they were further rewarded with a luxurious Pension Scheme, much better than any welfare state in the world. Can anyone ever forget how a Health Minister, after being paid millions in remuneration, have the audacity to openly boost about having a heart-bypass for a mere S$8 while the average Singaporeans are resigned to costly medical bills? From being a pragmatic and prudent society that is grounded in Confucius values, we traded away our value-system and started spending extravagantly. Our Singaporean Workforce was rapidly diluted with high influx of cheaper foreign workers while Permanent Secretary position in our ministries were reduced from being “equals” of ministers to being their subordinates. Mismanagement, Misjudgment & Miscalculation: Fast-forward, the follies of those politically-driven changes are finally being exposed by the pandemic. The old PAP that Singaporeans have trusted is gone, replaced by a corporate PAP in the form of SG Inc. We have unwittingly adopted the brutal culture of Corporate America because the majority of Singaporeans continue to give them a “blank cheque” at every general election, and many Singaporeans are finally getting a taste of its brutality for the first time. Truth be told, the caliber of the many of the 4G politicians are nowhere close to high performing Americans as the pandemic has shown us. By presuming that the pandemic will go away by itself, the government has been caught off-guard on several occasions, only to realize that even the mRNA-vaccination is proving to be ineffective and their strategy of herd-immunity is no difference than that of a mirage in the dessert. Against such a backdrop of failures, contradictions and growing discontention, it is only natural that concerned Singaporeans start questioning our government about the soundness of its strategy against the pandemic. Many Singaporeans, especially parents, wanted to know more about the many unknown of the mRNA technology and its side-effects as infection and fatality rates start escalating despite our high vaccination rate of over 85%. It is wrong for Singaporeans to feel nervous when things are getting from bad to worse? Instead of providing answers and more data to reassure concerned Singaporeans, or putting more effort into finding out why some Singaporeans remains unvaccinated, it is totally absurd for the government to be dismissive, and instead, put the blame of the rise in infection on the unvaccinated and start implementing discriminating policy against them. When PM Lee make a remark at the end of the G20 Summit in Rome to the media early this month that Singapore is “making progress” when the reality is that our infection and fatality rates are soaring out of control, he was in for a rude shock when the EU placed Singapore on its list of travel restriction a week later, and subsequently, when Denmark disallows Singapore residents quarantine free travel access into their country. Concerned Singaporeans, like the EU and Denmark, are not gullible to fall for such political rhetoric. What Are We Fighting Exactly? What is troubling is that there is a massive difference between the official narrative and the reality on the ground. We spend millions stationing Safety Ambassadors at our hawker centres island-wide to control access but almost anyone can still walk into our hawker centres undetected through the many glaring physical gaps. We exact punitive punishments on fellow Singaporeans when they fail to keep to the prescribed safety measures but seem to be turning a blind eye when it comes to foreigners. A taxi-driver told me that every Sunday, he notices that foreign workers are bringing their FDW-girlfriends to budget-hotels across Singapore for a short-term stay of a few hours, and this is happening from Geylang to Tiong Bahru. He even told me that beside these rendezvous at budget-hotels, there are also several karaoke that are still openly flouting safety measures. How on earth can MOM, MHA, MOH and the other governmental agencies remain clueless about such blatant discrepancies that are happening right under their noses? Don't just take my words for it but do go around and see for yourself or ask taxi drivers about such exploits. So where is our government’s resolution in fighting the pandemic? In light of all these glaring discrepancies, who should we hold responsible for the recent rise in infection and fatality in Singapore - unvaccinated Singaporeans or those gallivanting foreigners and errand operators? Is there even a basis to be discriminating against the unvaccinated when the government cannot get its own acts together in the first place? Is the MTF A Political Hot-Seat By Design? How on earth can the MTF or MOH be expected to manage our fight against the pandemic when other ministries and agencies are not taking their responsibility seriously? What is the probability that the MTF is being used by some of the PM-wannabes to get rid of their opponents? Who can concerned Singaporeans and parents turn to for help if our government continues to be dismissive of their concerns and needs for clarification? Shouldn’t Lee, as a former brigadier general, don his military amour once again and rally his legion of ex-generals and all his shortlisted PM-wannabes into the battle against the pandemic and save Singapore? In so doing, we can at least be assured that the “whole of government” will be as committed as Lee in his fight against the “crisis of a generation”. Until our government act in better faith, the Hard Truth is that more lives will be lost needlessly and Singapore will become more divided as a nation. Is this acceptable and do we still believe that Singaporeans deserve better?   Joseph Nathan      Read More →

Iris Koh We confirm that Iris Koh of the Healing The Divide (HTD) has backstabbed TR Emeritus (TRE), not once, not twice but three times within days, because our trusting and kind in-house techie Andrew, was dumb enough to trust her despite being warned by many of our readers that she (and her hubby) are 'well-known, disputable' figures. Here's a chronological order of the events that transpired for easy reading, on or about: 25th Oct: TRE was approached by some readers suggesting that we should offer our platform for the unvaccinated to launch a Judicial Review action against the MTF and we agreed. 28th Oct: We were informed by a fellow blogger that Iris Koh and her group may be starting something similar, so better to check with her group to avoid duplicate action. Andrew then contacted her, but she did not reply. 31st Oct: TRE announced the planned Judicial Review action and started to invite those interested to contact us. 1st Nov: Iris Koh contacted us and indicated that she would like to be included as a litigant in the challenge. Remembering that she is from HTD, Andrew asked her if she would like to organise and lead the JR challenge (her group has 1000+ members) and TRE would assist and back her in the matter, she said no. Please note that although there are about 800,000 unvaccinated individuals, we do not expect many to come forward due to the "everyone is waiting for someone else to do something" mentality, which is the reason why Andrew feels that if Iris were to lead the challenge, it would be a good thing as her group is larger and TRE could assist by offering our platform for dissemination of information and crowdfunding. Besides, it would also be pointless to initiate 2 action for the same matter, a waste of valuable resources. 6th Nov: TRE proceeds to crowdfund for the Judicial Review (JR). Some of our readers are also members of the HTD group, but when they tried to help TRE spread the word and advertise in the HTD group, their messages were deleted. 8th Nov: Iris' hubby, Raymong Ng started to spread words in the HTD group claiming that TRE's crowdfunding for litigation may be illegal. Our lawyers have since advised that this is absolute rubbish! 11th Nov: M Ravi, the lawyer very close to Iris Koh announced that he will be acting pro bono for a 'certain client' in a constitutional challenge against the MTF's policies. Suspecting that it might be Iris, Andrew contacted her again and she denied knowledge. On the same day, Andrew again contacted her and reiterated that it would be a very bad idea to be filing the same challenge twice, so if she wishes to take charge and take lead, TRE would stop our action and back her group. Again she denied that she is interested and even assured Andrew that she has never spoken to M Ravi about this. Andrew took her words for it, again so ever trusting. 13 Nov: M Ravi made a further bombshell announcement as follows: On the same day, Andrew called Iris on her mobile phone, Wechat and emailed her to confirm. She hung up on Andrew and refused to reply via Wechat or email, to date. It is really beyond comprehension as to why Iris would want to do something like that.  It is not as if there are tons of money to be made (like her hubby's coffee machine), or there are lottery prizes to win. We are merely trying to help out fellow citizens who have been discriminated. TRE has already made it very clear on many instances that we have no objection to her taking the lead in the challenge, all we need is one word from her and we will support her fully. Why does she still has to resort to such low blows? Be that as it may, we would like to confirm that our intended JR action will continue as scheduled as we already have enough litigants to proceed in a class action. We are currently still crowdfunding the initial legal fees, so please donate generously if you wish to help fellow unvaccinated make a point. We leave our readers with a quote from Chairman Xi of China:   做人, 不一定要風風光光, 但一定要堂堂正正。 處事, 不一定要盡善盡美, 但一定要問心無愧。 以真誠的心, 對待身邊的每一個人。 以感恩的心, 感謝擁有的一切。 未來, 不是窮人的天下, 也不是富人的天下, 而是一群志同道合, 敢為人先, 正直, 正念, 正能量人的天下。 真正的危機, 不是金融危機, 而是道德與誠信的危機。 與智者為伍, 與善者同行！   習近平 Chairman of China    Read More →