Mediacorp tonight was disgusting in its coverage of the Gomez incident.  First showing a PAP man asking for answers from James Gomez, answers to stupid questions like "Why did you need a lawyer to draft your apology statement?" (because if not, you'd sue him like you did all his colleagues, numbnuts), then the newscaster/commentator saying "But till now, there have been no answers...On the other hand, the PAP has been consistent since Day One with its message...With one opposition creating more questions than answers, and another with discord in its ranks..." Those were the snippets I could remember, because I didn't have my camera on hand to record everything with.  The bias in the news seems to be stepping up in the last few days leading up to Polling Day.  If you're wondering why, look at this:


Honestly, if one were to predict the outcomes of the 2006 General Elections from the amount of interest generated by election rallies, then the Workers' Party and the SDP will be sharing a landslide victory this year.  Unfortunately, one can't afford the luxury of such prediction.  One would have to consider two sorts of people -- the type who hang around opposition election rallies, laugh and clap and cheer, then go home and vote in the PAP, and the type who stay at home, relying on Mediacorp for all their information.  The couch potatoes are key to an approaching PAP victory.

Well, I had originally intended for this entry to be solely on the proceedings of the PAP Rally, but I was distracted by the news.  On the subject of the rally, which concluded my weekend round in which I visited one rally each by the SDP, the WP and the PAP, I must say the PAP one was the most uninspiring.  The crowd milled around, some chatting in low undertones to one another.  The most exciting thing I saw all night was this:


I asked the girls if I could take a picture of them and one of them promptly said 'no', while the other gestured me to somewhere I could take a picture from without being able to capture any identifying features.

It was also hilarious when I found myself and the rest of the crowd being introduced to Comrade Lim, Comrade Low and Comrade Shanmugaratnam during my visit.  What's with all this communist allusion? The Red Guards referred to each other as 'comrades'.  Let's also not forget Comrade Lenin, Comrade Stalin, and our dear friend Comrade Mao.  Does anyone remember Lee Hsien Loong saying he wants to let 'one hundred flowers bloom' in Singapore during his first-ever rally speech? That too was part of Mao's vision for communist China, in letting a 'a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend'.


I stayed to listen to Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Penny Low address the crowd.  Shanmugaratnam gave a predictable deluge of facts and statistics to illustrate how wonderful he's been at his job as Minister of Education, while Penny Low gave another barrage of examples which mostly had to do with widening roads and other upgrading projects with fancy acronyms.  One thing about Penny Low: she is one scary woman! She kept yelling at the crowd anti-SDA things, trying to rouse them up into some sort of fervour.  "SDA people in their trucks just go round and round and round! No direction! Round and round!"..."WHAT CAN THEY DO FOR YOU?!?", etc.  As far as I could see, only the core supporters near the stage would cheer here and there, while the rest seemed to stand silent and vaguely discomfited.  I'm very scared of her now :( I kept imagining her chasing after her kids with a rattan cane.

That's one part of a larger reason why I left early, during Low's speech.  The WP rally left me inspired, thoughtful, reflective, hopeful.  The PAP one left me afraid, uncomfortable, and out of place.  When the person I was with started to criticize Low, I couldn't help but look over my shoulder at the surrounding policemen in their neon green jackets, and wonder where the recording devices were.

Oh well.  Tomorrow I return to school, and I shan't be able to attend any more rallies for the rest of the week.  I'm grateful in many ways for this weekend and the chances it gave me to both celebrate the presence of democracy, in the wide open fields, and lament the absence of it in the four walls of my living room.

A new online movement seems to have started which calls on bloggers to write e-mails to Channelnewsasia at newseditor@channelnewsasia complaining about the recent coverage of the General Elections.  Despite mixed response from the online community and varying degrees of confidence in achieving the movement's desired results, I've decided that since I bear such vitriolic sentiments towards the local media, informing them of these sentiments would only be polite.  Hence, the piecemeal and hasty crafting of the following e-mail, which has already been sent:


I suggest all of you guys send out a similar e-mail.  Singabloodypore even thoughtfully provides a template.  Regardless of whether or not it has any real effect, the least we will accomplish is irritating the editor :) Now he will have to delete hundreds of e-mails complaining about unfair media coverage, before going on to delete all the e-mails regarding real and valid Opposition concerns, before finally being able to start his day! Poor man.

That was one of the many slogans bandied around at the Workers' Party rally tonight, at Hougang Avenue 4 that drew cheers and whoops of agreement from the crowd.  Thousands strong, they thronged the open field, pouring onto any empty space of green, crowding round a blaring loudspeaker for want of an available view of the real stars of the night -- the speakers, which included Sylvia Lim, Low Thia Kang, Goh Meng Seng and Perry Tong.  It was a heartening feeling, standing under the night sky, breathing in a neighbour's cigarette smoke, watching the aunties squat and the ah peks spit and the couples cuddle, the disembodied voice coming from the loudspeaker illiciting loud cries of 'Wor--ker's Party!' -- turning my head to watch the stunning sight of the flats nearby crowded with spectators on every stairway, watching from every landing, peering out through the window grills.  So very many people! The smoke still soaks my clothes, my ears still ring, and on the back of my eyelids I can still see so vividly, the sheer number of people, and how loudly I could hear them shout from afar.

The Workers' Party did not disappoint like the SDP did at their rally.  They brought up some sound proposals in addition to their rhetoric, though the crowd stayed mostly silent to economic jargon, most of which came from Perry Tong.  But the jargon was balanced, in his case, with simple and communicative language, and phrases of Hokkien which drew appreciative whistles and laughs from the crowd.  Among his proposals were for the Singaporean government to ask for steep discounts in patent royalties with the biomedical research firms they negotiate with, or for the right of Singaporean companies to manufacture generic drugs locally.  He spoke of his desire to make Singapore into a hub for the manufacturing and distribution of medicine, which would dramatically decrease shipping costs, translating into cheaper healthcare and increased jobs and investments.  He also suggested that patients with chronic illnesses like kidney failure should only be charged cost-price in their treatment.  The biggest cheers came from the crowd when he raised the issue of his desire to see the removal of GST for healthcare.

Most of the speeches were delievered in dialect, which I unfortunately don't understand, but I caught the Mandarin bits.  Essentially the party focussed on two issues: healthcare, and upgrading.  Sylvia Lim and Low Thia Kang, in their speeches, besides railing against the PAP for being unfair and divisive in their upgrading policies, also attacked the idea of means-testing, questioning the ability for a fair yardstick by which one may measure wealth to be implemented.  If one measured wealth by household income, for instance, it might not take into consideration the number of people in the family.  If it measured wealth by accommodation, it would hardly be representative.  If it measured wealth by an  individual's income, that would not take into account his debts, his elderly parents to support, etc., and in any case, richer people pay more taxes under the current progressive system already.  So everyone should have sovereignty over their remaining money, to spend it how they like, and to plan for their own futures.

Mohammed Rahizan Yaacob's airtime was the most entertaining to me, partly because it was one out of only two English speeches I remember, and partly because of its inventiveness.  He began sombrely with "Friends, I have a grave announcement...yesterday I lost my umbrella.  There were so many things to do that I forgot where I had put it." I think the irony was lost a little on the crowd, because he was not totally clear, but I appreciated his sarcasm regarding how the PAP was making a big deal out of a simple mistake.  He also ridiculed the PAP for saying how Rahizan would not be able to raise the education of Malays, as opposed to Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim, by saying: "Yaacob Ibrahim is the Minister of what? Water.  Why is he asking the Minister of Water to settle this? I thought we were a multi-racial society.  We should be asking Tharman Shanmugaratnam to raise the educational levels of Malay and non-Malay pupils.  He is the Minister of Education."

I wonder how much of this the Straits Times will cover tomorrow.  I doubt very much that they'll cover the portion of Rahizan Yaacob's speech which called for transparency and accountability on the part of the government through allowing for a free and independent media, uninterfered with by the government.  Nope, the Straits Times is certainly avoiding that issue.  Publishing it would be a bit too meta-journalistic!

SINGAPORE : Mr Desmond Lim, assistant secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA), has been studying the balance sheet of Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council.

"Whoever wins the election will take over the assets and balance amount of the current town council," he said at a walkabout in the constituency that his unnamed six-member team is contesting.

Mr Lim told Today that if his team won, he would use the sinking fund - whose amount is "very huge" to improve the towns of Pasir Ris, Sengkang and Punggol.

His list of programmes - that include lift-upgrading, building covered linkways to MRT stations and lobbying for neighbourhood libraries - were drawn up based on residents' feedback, Mr Lim said.

He has also crafted a document resembling a manifesto for his campaign in the constituency. Its main points: To bolster family ties, "maximise opportunities for all Singaporeans" and build a more compassionate society.

Asked about the similarities between his election agenda and the People's Action Party's (PAP) manifesto, Mr Lim cited a construction analogy where the SDA was the "quantity surveyor" while the PAP was the "architect".

This raised the eyebrows of Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean, leader of the Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC team.

"Since they agree with us, I would encourage them to come and join our grassroots organisations to help to build a better Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC," said Mr Teo on Sunday at the opening of a senior citizens' corner in Sengkang.

"In fact, it's a remarkable admission that they don't have a vision or plans or ideas." - TODAY Singapore Votes 2006: Channelnewsasia.com special coverage >>>

Desmond Lim and his colleagues cruised through the streets of Pasir Ris today, in their white truck outfitted with a blaring loudspeaker and white SDA flags.  Seeing them stop just outside Loyang Point, which is at Pasir Ris Drive 2, I badgered my father into parking there so I could check it out.  We found them in the food court, going from table to table, and my dad and I sat ourselves down at a table near to where he was, so he'd come talk to us.  He had with him the balance sheet of Pasir Ris-Punggol, and here are the figures he showed us: the Town Council of Pasir Ris-Punggol has $139 million in funds, and a surplus of $7.4 million.  There is a sinking fund of $125 million.  Channelnewsasia glosses over these figures in the above article by simply saying he called it "a huge sum", as if he didn't have the exact numbers down in black and white already to back up his claims with.  He used the balance sheet to tell us how SDA would carry out upgrading programs in Pasir-Ris Punggol if elected, and complained about how the media had given no coverage to his raising of this issue at his rally the night before. 

Interestingly, he also pointed out a withdrawal of $10 million accredited under 'Termination of Fund Manager'.  He claims the Town Council refused to explain this withdrawal to him.  He called this his 'weapon', which I found vastly amusing.  Regardless of whether or not something fishy is going on, calling something 'my weapon' is just funny.

Desmond Lim also told me that what his party needed was more independent volunteers.  He alleged that at the Jalan Besar polls at the 2001 elections, he spotted the handicapped and the elderly being influenced in their vote, with those assisting them pointing at 'PAP' on their polling cards.  He said there was a need for more independents to monitor the going-ons, and limit instances of cheating.

I wished him all the best for the elections and told him I'd put what he said on my blog.  He then said he'd uploaded the PPTC balance sheet onto his website if I needed it, but I haven't been able to find that so far.  Oh well, make what you will of the whole business.  Me, I was just interested to meet and talk to an Opposition candidate for the first time.

I might attend a PAP rally at Potong Pasir tonight.  A friend asked me if I wanted to help usher, etc., like he's doing, as he's been contacted by YoungPAP to help out.  He said I just need to bring my NRIC because the police need to know who's doing what.  I said sorry, because firstly even showing people to their seats at a PAP rally seems to go against my principles, and secondly registering with the police as a PAP aide is rather forbidding.  I half wish I'd taken him up on his offer though, it would have been interesting to have an insider's perspective for a night.

I visited my first election rally tonight, held by the SDP at Woodlands Stadium.  There was a healthy attendance, with both the bleachers and the field filled with spectators and a group of hardcore SDP supporters near the stage.  The highlight of the evening was when Chee Soon Juan arrived.  He didn't say anything, as he isn't allowed to speak at election rallies, but his silence in some ways spoke louder than words.  I wish I knew how to upload the video on my camera onto the Internet; as it is, here's a screenshot:


Though, as you look at the screenshot, try to imagine it all happening in real time, with crowds chanting "SDP! SDP! SDP SDP!", hundreds upon hundreds cheering and whistling, cameras snapping, and the crowd hounding Chee's heels as he strode past, bearing the red SDP flag.  That's what it was like.  Bewildering magic.  I hold a lot more respect for Chee now than I did in the past, largely because I'd only heard of him through the Straits Times media, with their unflattering shots of him, and how all sentences with his name in it also contained the word 'defamation'.  Now, after having read a bit of what he wrote in his book, The Power of Courage: Effecting political change in Singapore through Nonviolence, and also having listened to him speak online, which you should do here,  I find myself rather won to his cause and even endeared to his means - well, most of them, and despite the fact that they haven't helped him much.  Click on that link and listen to his speech, and perhaps you'll understand why I find him to be a fluent and charismatic man, who is unfortunately fighting a losing battle against the PAP here in Singapore.  Not allowed to travel overseas, not allowed to speak during rallies, bankrupted, ranted against, discredited, deserted, disempowered, this man still walks with his head high and a gentle smile on his face.  More power to him.

Unfortunately, Chee's arrival was the most exciting thing to happen all night.  Aside from that brief madness where he was just a few metres from me, before I was swept away by the jostling crowd and the flashing cameras, the rally largely comprised empty rhetoric and pettiness.  I think the valuable thing about the experience was not being fired up about the issues they raised, or particularly agreeing with their assertions, but rather the astonishing feeling of wonder tinged with fear at being in the midst of a shouting, cheering crowd fringed with watchful policemen, seen below:


I don't think I've ever seen more policemen in one place here in Singapore.

On other news! The PAP is using the defamation suit to distract media attention from covering issues raised by the SDP regarding NKF, as I blogged about below, and now it seems it's using the James Gomez issue to do the same to the Worker's Party.  The bias evident in the language is just appalling; they're calling it a "fiasco".  Good heavens, the man just forgot to hand it in, and already said he wanted to leave the issue behind before the security footage was ever released, furthermore it doesn't even have any bearing on the election because he's not entering as a minority candidate! (I need a certificate to prove I'm not Chinese, as it's not immediately self-evident to these unintelligent voters, you see).  Another Channelnewsasia article I read recently called the WP's mistakes in their form submission to contest Aljunied GRC in the previous election a 'debacle', after having thrown in a slew of upgrading programs etc. that had been launched in Aljunied during the PAP's term there. 

In contrast, tonight the newscaster said that Chiam See Tong 'took a potshot' at the PAP for not building closer ties with Malaysia.  What a potshot indeed! I mean, it's not like they supply our water or anything, right? The media is clearly right in calling it a potshot, that is, "criticism aimed at an easy target and made without careful consideration" (dictionary.com).  I'm so glad I have the media to tell me which election issues are debacles, which are fiascos, and which are potshots.  God forbid that I should decide for myself.

Rubbish like that makes me want to tear my hair out.

Is this genetic or something?

I must give him all respect for this undefeatable statement.  It is truly a dumbfounding, mind-boggling, flabbergasting masterpiece of rhetoric to which there is no intuitive reply.  It is a statement that presupposes his superior status, and confers a notion of graciousness and humility upon the very fact that he would consent to have free and direct dialogue with young Singaporeans.  Here I am talking to lower lifeforms.  Obviously I can't be arrogant.


A statement almost worthy of his father's finesse -- his very presence gracing our midst is proof enough that he is concerned and serious about the contest to win our hearts and our votes.  The supreme high chancellor himself has deigned to kiss my baby, oh my god he must really care!

I wish my daddy could come up with trump cards like that.  All he ever says is 'blistering barnacles' :( and I'll say 'thundering typhoons'.

On other news, there were three concurrent rallies going on at the same time tonight: one by the PAP, one by the WP, and one by the SDP.  Why is it News 5 Tonight only bothered to give coverage to the PAP one? Another thing I found amusing -- the PAP rally had to shift venue because of heavy rain and lightning.  A friend and I were discussing the irony of that earlier today, if a lightning bolt struck the PAP, as per their logo, and Thor's hammer struck the Worker's Party, as per theirs.  O rain, O doom and ill portent! And the 6th of May is coming, coming, coming...

...on Nomination Day.  Quite a delicious ring to that, I think, especially since the last time the opposition contested a majority of seats was 1988 -- when I was born.

I remember when I first began to discuss politics on my blog.  This whole commentary began when I talked about the desire for the dignity of choice in my country, despite my faith in the PAP.  I don't think my stance has fundamentally changed.  I'm a little more cynical, a little more reflective and critical regarding the PAP, these days -- a little less inclined to see them as infallible -- but at the end of it all I do believe that yes, they are the best and most qualified party in Singapore.  No other party comes close.

That begs an interesting question: if I had, today, a card in my hand that entitled me to vote, would I vote for the better candidate, or the less-qualified candidate for the sake of checking the PAP's power in the government?

I think it would depend on two factors that could swing my vote either way.  Firstly, is the disparity between the candidates clear, discernible and miles wide? Secondly, would helping a member of the Opposition enter Parliament further my vision for a mature and democratic Singapore?

The dynamism between these two concerns would determine the outcome of my vote.  I guess if it came right down to it, I'd choose someone like Teo Chee Hean over Chee Soon Juan, because the disparity to me would be so clear.  But I'd choose Low Thia Kang over Teo Chee Hean because I believe that Low Thia Kang isn't that far off the mark, that he is a worthy candidate, and that having more of an opposition's voice present in Parliament would further that democratic vision and help to make the playing field here more fair.

It's a tough decision, and in some ways I'm glad that that responsibility is a few years away from me yet.

In the meanwhile, Kellie Pickler has been ousted from American Idol! Now that's one democratic voting exercise that got it right ;)

On April 07, I posted this entry asking why there hasn't been more transparency regarding the ShinCorp takeover bid by Temasek Holdings.  While browsing this site earlier today, I came across these pictures:

I was in Thailand late last year, in December 2005, for a mission trip and I had the opportunity to meet many Thai people.  They are perhaps the gentlest, kindest cultural group of people I've ever met.  What has moved them to such hatred against our government and, by extension, us? Surely we deserve to know, considering Temasek Holdings uses our national reserves to invest abroad in places and companies like ShinCorp.  This is a PR debacle for Singapore.  Why isn't more attention being paid to it? Even the opposition seems disinterested, much less our media 'watchdogs'.

Something has stirred the Thai people to action in their 'Silk Revolution' (the term 'Velvet Revolution' was used in the context of the Cold War to refer to bloodless revolutions, and the term 'Silk Revolution' has been applied to the Thai movement by political commentators such as Time Magazine because of obvious parallels).  It is a connection we lack, a sense of ownership the Thais have with their government-linked company, ShinCorp, that has led to their being affronted by Temasek's move.  In contrast, Singaporeans go on with their daily lives, unconcerned, uncaring about what Temasek does with our country's money.  And the 6th of May is coming, coming, coming...

The arrest of T.T. Durai and the defamation suit launched against the Singapore Democratic Party are two of the most painfully strategic moves the government could have made at this juncture.  It no longer matters if the government really was defamed, or if the SDP was pointing out valid truths, or if the government has failed in its responsiblities with regards to ensuring the accountability of the National Kidney Foundation to the public or not.  The newspapers now are not flooded with 'Is the government culpable of breaking public faith?' -- instead, we have pictures thrown at us, images seared into our brain of a seedy-looking Durai with bling bling rings on his fingers, facing up to hardnosed public prosecution.  We have headlines day after day: another one falls away, deserting Chee, leaving them to face the music; the SDP crumbling, scattering, afraid, men who are too scared to face up to the libel they have perpetuated.

The heart of the affair has been lost, and in its place we have a hollow mannequin, dressed in legal apparatus.  They have shifted the focus to bickering, blame-shifting, in-fighting, and in the process have obfuscated the matter such that the real issue that the opposition is raising -- the sacred trust between public institution and the public -- has been lost.  This seems absolutely characteristic of their tactics.  The world they have constructed is one of black suits and leather briefcases, a paper factory of affidavits, which when torn away reveals precisely nothing.  It's been stolen away from us so neatly we have not even realized it.  Instead they have left us with men who look silly and discredited, left in shambles, around a tattered rallying flag.

Imagine if T.T. Durai had not been arrested at that timely moment.  Imagine if Lee Hsien Loong hadn't called up Davinder Singh to launch that fatal lawsuit against the SDP.  What would our newspapers be filled with instead? Perhaps more convolutions, red herrings and distractions, perhaps new inventions, but perhaps -- just perhaps -- it would have turned its attention to the true issues that are at the political core of this sweeping, tantacled saga.

I haven't read the SDP newsletter, but from the press shots that have shown the front page show, in capital letters, something along the lines of: alarm bells raised early, but government did nothing.

Let's face it, that's true.

In August 1997 and December 1998, NKF volunteer Archie Ong and aero-modelling instructor Piragasam Singaravelu respectively were hauled to court separately for defamation when both said that T.T. Durai had been flying first class. The former mentioned in April 1997 that the NKF "squandered monies" in a casual conversation with former chairman of NKF's finance committee Alwyn Lim,^[1] while the latter has claimed that he had personally seen Mr Durai in Singapore Airlines' first-class cabin. Both paid an undisclosed amount of damages to the NKF, and apologised. ^[2] News of the suit affected Ong's cancer-suffering father, who eventually died in hospital. Shortly after the scandal broke, Ong mentioned to the press that he felt "fully vindicated now. I had more than a hundred calls today to wish me well."^[3]

In 1999, NKF tracked down and again took legal action against Tan Kiat Noi, who allegedly circulated an e-mail from her company e-mail on 5 April, claiming that "the NKF did not help the poor and needy, paid its staff unrealistically high bonuses"^[4] and discouraged members of the public from donating. She later published a public apology on local broadsheets The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao, and paid a total of S$50,000 in damages.^[5][6] 48 additional workers who forwarded the same e-mail were also sued by the organisation, but the suit was later dropped in consideration that they would face possible financial hardships.

There were indeed early accusations against the NKF, and the government indeed did nothing.  That's not defamation in my book, that's fact.  Of course, I personally feel that this was far less of the government's responsibility than it was the NKF's. No one suspected anything was really going on, or if they did, they were too lazy to do anything about it: opposition included.  The opposition also failed in this respect, as did the media, as a check and balance.  Now, the opposition parties seem to be making connections out of thin air in this respect, in their bid to twist the issue to paint the government in an unfavourable light.  I would go so far as to say that the real matter is only tangentially related to the government's role in things, and that the true concern is that of the degree of a public institution's transparency in its dealings and its accountability to the public.  That it has been politicised to such an extent is, honestly, a warping misrepresentation of that, even if it is tangentially related to political issues.

But the government can't very well step up to Singaporeans and say "it wasn't my responsibility or my business" -- that would look lame in the face of the opposition's rhetoric, and especially since Tan Choo Leng, wife of SM Goh Chok Tong, was the NKF patron and famously dismissed TT Durai's salary as "peanuts" compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars the organization managed.  So it does the next best thing; sue the opposition for defamation.  It no longer matters if the opposition's arguments were based on facts or myths and lies, no one is interested in that any longer.  The newsletter is now kept hush hush and the media is more interested in whether or not Chee and his associates crumble than whether or not there was any kind of truth to their accusations.


These are the questions which will continue not to be answered; questions which raise haunting doubts about the government's share of culpability in the NKF scandal -- how much they should have acted, or how much they shouldn't -- questions which will remain unanswered, buried under a heap of legal writs and smear campaigns.  And all the while, May 6th is coming, coming, coming...

Disclaimer: All information contained herein is, to the author's knowledge, factually correct.  Any misunderstanding or inaccuracy is birthed of ignorance not malice.