To my fellow 33,000 colleagues in the teaching fraternity, Happy Teacher’s Day! I hope you had a good day of celebrations and that the students were kinder to you today.
Just like you, I am a teacher in one of the schools in Singapore. Busy whole year round not just with the daily classroom management strategies and idiosyncrasies of every child, but also being swarmed with CCA, HDP reports, CP entries, setting exam papers, lesson plans, performance tasks, applied learning, learning journeys, scheme of works, …. just some of the terms we all are just so familiar with.
I would say one of the toughest parts of our jobs is in guiding the child, either through our decisions of positive reinforcement, negative consequences, or as a last resort, punishments. We always hope that in our decision, our judgement is not clouded and that the child will be able to develop the correct traits and values to be future ready for Singapore and contribute back to society.
I am proud of our schools, where there are measures in place to manage bullying. I do believe every teacher would be able to manage a situation in a class where there is bullying, whether it is physical, verbal or just plain taunting.
As an educator, I am proud of this. As much as we are unable to change society overnight, it is our hope that when we start young with our children in schools, they will develop into concerned citizens with the right values, ready to continue bringing Singapore to new heights.
As an adult watching the election unfold, I cannot say I am proud of some of our leaders. I am sure many of you are able to see that there is obvious bullying, intimidation, mud-slinging and even character assassinations. Are these not the exact traits of the very same bullies that we will always be quick to put down or speak up against in correction?
To my fellow 33,000 colleagues in the teaching fraternity, do pardon my English and writing as I am actually a Mathematics teacher. It is just my hope that during this election, we take our vote seriously and ask ourselves if this were the type of traits we want in our leaders, our children, our future.
Please be true to ourself and follow our heart in our vote.
Much has been said by the PAP candidates about honesty, integrity and character in the heat of elections campaigning. PM Lee Hsien Loong has also declared: “If good men can’t get elected…then we have a problem.” I agree. But are the PAP leaders really good men and women with integrity and good character?
Before I go on, let me state that I believe that many of the PAP MPs are decent people in their personal lives. However, they appear to have shelved their conscience when it comes to their political roles. By partaking in the wrongdoings by the government, they are party to the deceit and this reflects poorly on their character and it shows a lack of integrity.
Is this the sort of people we want to vote for to be our future leaders and role models to our children and youths?
Just today, I saw a posting on Facebook of a note posted on the door of a flat in Tanjong Pagar. It warned the PAP not to knock on their door and it explained that the occupants of that flat “cannot support a party that bullies, intimidates and mud-slings its way into Parliament”. For good measure the writer added “since from back in school, we have never voted for bullies to be prefects”.
Image – Murshidah Mohd
Seeing such reactions from Singaporeans gives me hope that people are disturbed by the PAP’s despicable behaviour and that they want to vote in people with integrity to lead our country.
Indeed, voters must go beyond bread and butter issues and examine closely the character and integrity of the PAP which is the dominant party (and other political parties of course) before they decide on who to vote for. This GE, there are many excellent quality candidates in the opposition parties with many hailing from prestigious universities and from professional or corporate backgrounds including lawyers and doctors. What then should the deciding factors be when choosing who to vote for when we have such a wide choice across the parties?
For me, it is integrity and character of the party leaders and the candidates.
For far too long, too many Singaporeans have closed their eyes to the abuse of power by the PAP-dominated government which has run the country with much deception and hypocrisy. I worry that if this continues, our people will become inured to the wrongdoings so much so that even the children and youths may come to believe that PAP’s way of doing things – the ends justify the means – is the right way when it is not.
It is high time that voters, young and old open their eyes and start voting with their conscience in addition to their head for the sake of our people and our future. If the online comments and the letter by the TP GRC resident is anything to go by, it appears that more Singaporeans are voicing their anger over the hypocrisy and double standards of the PAP leaders.
So what has the PAP-Government done to incur the people’s wrath? The list is long as it spans 50 years but let me highlight eight key ones.
Manipulating and lying about our country’s history
Abusing power such as through blatant gerrymandering
Creating and nurturing a culture of fear in the people of the Government
Conflict of interest and double standards in the application of laws and rules.
Misusing our state-funded resources notably the People’s Association
Using outrageously dirty tricks to fix the opposition and vocal critics
Creating repressive laws to suppress our civil rights and to control the people
Their total denial of any wrongdoing and shameless hypocrisy
Let’s start with the manipulation of our country’s history. It is one thing to hurl mud at opposition parties and it is another for the PAP to exploit and denigrate our country’s proud history by twisting the historical facts for their political advantage. What kind of First World politicians would do this? Are the PAP leaders truly proud Singaporeans as they claim?
The tragedy of all this propaganda is that many Singaporeans, including well-educated youths, are blindly parroting these completely wrong narratives which is a great insult to our country’s illustrious history and heritage. It is not uncommon to hear intelligent young adults claiming mindlessly that LKY founded and even named our country which they blindly believe was a mere fishing village 50 years ago!
For years now, the PAP has been blasting false propaganda such as telling people that Singapore was nothing but a kampong/fishing village/swamp 50 years ago. By downplaying our history, they aim to reinforce a political narrative that they had transformed our country from nothing to a metropolis.
Raffles Place in 1920
The fact is 50 years ago, in 1965, Singapore was already pretty developed with a financial centre, busy port, many modern buildings, hotels, good schools, bustling shops and restaurants and a strong civil service. Many of us who are old enough to remember the good old days can attest to this. Yes, we had kampongs and some swamps in parts of our lush tropical forests but to claim the entire country was a fishing village and swampland? Come on, does one call Malaysia a fishing village just because they still have many villages? Of course not!
Our island, by virtue of its excellent geographical location, was already an important and thriving trade hub centuries ago. By the early 1900s, Singapore was a prosperous city, one of the most modern in Southeast Asia, and it had one of the world’s busiest ports.
I urge Singaporeans, new citizens and PRs living here to make an effort to learn about our real history and towatch YouTube videos of Singapore taken in the 1900s. For more information, you can click on this link – a blog post I wrote on why Singapore was not a barren island 50 years ago.
Moving on, let’s look at how this government has abused its power. For starters, why is the Elections Department headed by PM Lee Hsien Loong when there is clearly a conflict of interest? For years now, we have been facing flagrant gerrymandering by the PAP-G which redraws the boundaries of constituencies at every General Elections for its political advantage. Why are places like Holland Road and Orchard under Tanjong Pagar GRC and parts of Serangoon under Marine Parade GRC?
And why are posters with Lee Hsien Loong’s picture placed all over Singapore when it clearly contravenes one of the elections statutes that states candidates can only place their posters within the constituency that they are contesting?
For more examples of double standards and power abuse, let’s look at how the they go to extreme lengths to fix the opposition parties. Almost everyone here knows by now how they have been attacking the Workers’ Party over the ongoing Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council saga.
The PAP-Govt has wasted tax-payers money and used government agencies including the Ministry of National Development to try to bury the WP in their bid to wrest back Aljunied-Hougang GRC. But despite their best efforts at mud-slinging over the past 10 months there has been no proof of corruption.
As a reminder, right after the WP won the Aljunied GRC in the 2011 elections, the government did something shocking. It used the HDB to literally seize 26 plots of land from WP and leased them to the People’s Association instead. This was obviously politically motivated as WP is the elected representatives of these two constituencies and no reason was given by the G for the decision. Subsequently, all community events at these sites had to be approved by the PA instead of WP’s town council and there was another scandal when it was leaked that community event organisers were told not to invite the WP members to their events.
This history of fixing the opposition goes back many decades with the G having sued, bankrupted, jailed and also exiled many of their most vocal opponents and critics. Notable political events where many brave Singaporeans were persecuted by the PAP-government include Operations Cold Store and the Marxist Conspiracy.
Today, the fixing of their critics continues, albeit on a smaller scale. Actions du jour include filing police reports and suing citizens such as Lee Hsien Loong’s lawsuit against blogger Roy. They have also created more laws such as the Protection from Harassment law, a law created supposedly to protect innocent citizens but which ironically has been used by the Government against their critics. The Amos Yee saga was an example of how this law was invoked when 32 supporters of the PAP filed police reports against the boy for his video mocking Lee Kuan Yew. It also showed how the Government can, in its haste to protect its leaders and its party, even persecute a 16-year-old boy by placing him in remand/jail and even in a mental hospital for several weeks.
Such ridiculous persecutions have been reported by the global media and made us a laughing-stock. And it makes Singaporeans wonder if PAP is a Party Against its People.
The PAP-G constantly preaches integrity and good character when they behave like hypocritical tyrants without a conscience. They can attack the WP over the AHPETC matter while downplaying the Auditor General Office (AGO)’s report on financial lapses committed by many government agencies, statutory boards and ministriesevery year.
The most damning finding in July found that 40 per cent of the 115 grassroots organisations it “test-checked” had financial irregularities, including the case of the chairman of the Admiralty Citizens’ Consultative Committee (CCC) who was involved in approving awards of two contracts to a company in which he had an interest. In addition, he was also found to have approved “his own claims amounting to $114,767.”
The irregularities found by the AGO involving the PA amounted to a princely sum of more than $20 million. And this was based not on a thorough audit of all the grassroots organisations but on only 40%.
The G declared that the PA’s investigation (ownself check ownself?) of the Admiralty CCC chairman found “no evidence of dishonesty”. This was followed by the PA’s Deputy Chairman Lim Swee Say (also Manpower Minister) declaring that most of the lapses arose“out of good intentions” and not dishonesty.
Now if only the G could be as understanding with the Workers Party which faced daunting obstacles when they took over the running of the AHPETC – 26 sites were seized; the entire computer system in the town council was removed and sold to AIM a $2-company owned by PAP members; and not a single company dared to tender for the job of Managing Agent of the estate (likely out of fear of upsetting the mighty PAP-G).
Finally, how ethical can these PAP leaders be when they blatantly misuse the People’s Association network and state-funded resources to promote their party and their MPs? The entire grassroots network from the CCs to the RCs has been compromised to be partisan. It is a fact that numerous grassroots leaders have benefited from supporting the PAP such as gaining priority for their kids at schools and even getting to reserve the best units in unlaunched HDB projects.
Despite growing condemnation of their unethical behaviour it is disturbing that the PAP leaders are impervious to the people’s laments. If anything, they are becoming more militant and defiant in their response. Do they truly believe the ends justify the means? Is economic success all that matters? Is no price too high to pay to retain their power even if it means denying their conscience? If they truly do believe this, they are taking us down the road, not to paradise, but to hell.
Fellow Singaporeans, you have a choice to sit back and let them to do so or take action to change the direction in which we are headed.
Come 11 September, let it be the dawn of a fresh new beginning. Vote wisely. Vote with your conscience. Vote for a government that has both competence and integrity.
“Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it” – Albert Einstein
While some may be dissatisfied with certain aspects of government spending, budgets cannot be “all sweetness and light”, said Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
The Government shapes the Budget in the interest of Singapore’s future and not to win elections, and this may involve some measures that are unpopular, Mr Tharman said, speaking at a dialogue with about 400 youths organised by the People’s Association Youth Movement yesterday.
“You should be very worried if you have a government that disburses only nice measures … because that never lasts,” said Mr Tharman, who is also Finance Minister. When countries reverse policies, it is the poor who will be most affected and the Budget this year ensures the Government will not have to do that in years to come, he added.
Mr Tharman’s comments echo earlier remarks he made when wrapping up the Budget debate last Thursday, when he said the Republic has to sustain a fair and inclusive society for generations, “not one election at a time”, as has been the case in the United Kingdom and other advanced economies.
Yesterday, more than 30 questions were posed in the 90-minute dialogue on policies introduced in the Budget, including concerns about the SkillsFuture scheme, the Silver Support Scheme and the petrol duty hike.
Mr Tharman said SkillsFuture, which will provide credits to Singaporeans for use in training and enhancing vocational education through better internships and paid apprenticeships, will not only help make Singapore a more competitive economy, but also enhance social mobility. This is because it will provide learning opportunities for all Singaporeans throughout their lives, regardless of their education qualifications.
Mastery of skills is essential to keep Singapore competitive in the global economy and is possible regardless of one’s academic achievements, he said. Currently, learning is too “front-loaded” and involves too much “information cramming” and competition in the first 10 years of life. However, he said life beyond school is not a race, but a continuous discovery of one’s potential.
“SkillsFuture is for everyone: Those who dropped out early, those who went to university, those who are in mid-career, those who already have a Masters degree … If you’ve got a university degree, after a while, frankly, it doesn’t mean very much. So it’s for everyone regardless of qualifications,” said Mr Tharman.
Asked why the S$500 SkillsFuture Credit is not offered to Singaporeans before the age of 25, Mr Tharman said it is important for those fresh in the workforce to spend time learning on their jobs.
While he acknowledged the value of developing multiple specialisations, particularly how synergies among different skill sets can lead to innovation, Mr Tharman said that mastery takes time.
“To develop deep skills, you really need time … so don’t move too quickly,” he said.
In terms of education and career counselling, the minister said it is important for those as young as secondary-school age to gain exposure to the real world. For older students, career guidance can be geared more towards specialisations and internships.
Junior colleges should also explore offering some courses centred on applied learning, he said. “I think that provides a bit more fluidity because people don’t know for sure at that age if they are more interested in an applied pathway or a more conceptual route. So having a bit of both is useful.”
Mr Tharman added that getting employers on board SkillsFuture is vital but also challenging, because many small and medium enterprises may not have sufficient resources to invest in training and development. He added that employers must also adopt an “enlightened attitude” towards training.
“If we all keep thinking short term, we will be caught in a vicious circle, where the employer does not invest in the employee, and the employee as a result feels he does not have an important future in the firm and moves,” he said.
