Misunderstandings about the Singapore Constitution The Online Citizen has done a good job reporting the judgment given by Justice Steven Chong today in the Yong Vui Kong case.The outcome was not in the least bit surprising to me. The Constitution is quite clear -- the President has no discretion on clemency applications, but is instead required to act in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet. To my mind, this judgment is entirely correct in law.Understanding this better requires a little trip back in legal history. Singapore started off with a constitutional presidency -- the President was the head of state, but was a nominal one and was really a ceremonial post. This was consistent with Singapore being a parliamentary democracy in the Westminster tradition, where executive power lay wholly with the elected government of the day. If you will, the President was the republic's equivalent to the constitutional monarchy in the UK (i.e. the Queen of England).Under this approach, the President (just like the Queen) has no discretion and must act in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet. A constitutional crisis ensues if the President fails or declines for any reason to act in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet.But this changed with the Elected Presidency amendments in 1991. They introduced a hybrid approach whereby the President was to be elected, with some veto powers over executive decisions. These veto powers may be exercised by the President in his/her sole discretion, i.e. the President does not need to follow the advice of the Cabinet on such matters. But on all matters, the President continues to be bound by the advice of the Cabinet.Article 21 of the Singapore Constitution sets out this position. It lists those decisions where the President may use his/her own discretion. All other decisions must be made in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet. It should be clear from Article 21, that the power to grnat a pardon under Article 22 is one where the President is legally bound to follow the decision of the Cabinet.None of this is actually controversial. When I studied this in law school (and my graduating class is having our 10-year reunion tomorrow, so this was 12-13 years ago), this was taught as a straightforward fact and there was no controversy on this. Indeed, even the Wikipedia entry on the President of Singapore (current last edit being on 18 July 2010) correctly correctly describes how the powers of the President may be exercised.I want to be clear that I am talking about the law as it is, i.e. applying a "positive" approach to the law here. I am not, in this post, talking about what the law should be (i.e. applying a "normative" approach). I must confess that, bearing in mind that we are a parliamentary democracy and bearing in mind the stated objectives of the Elected Presidency, I see no particular reason why the power to grant a pardon should be one where the President should be entitled to use his/her own discretion and not be bound by the advice of the Cabinet.Finally, I think it has to be said that the courts have been very fair to Yong Vui Kong ever since the appeal process began in earnest. They have given Yong and his lawyer M. Ravi every opportunity to make every argument possible. In this particular instance, Justice Chong's "invitation" to the prison authorities to extend the deadline for submitting a clemency application, pending a decision by the Court of Appeal on any appeal against his decision, is a very welcome statement. Babies cannot drink on MRT trains?! I was watching the 9.30 news (which is supposed to really be news, and is nothing like The Noose!) and saw a news story about there being fewer people being caught eating and drinking on MRT trains.You can find the web story here. But frankly, it does not convey the true absurdity and ridiculousness of the rule. The news clip did.The clip showed an SMRT inspector asking at least two different adults, each with a baby or toddler in a pram who was suckling from a milk bottle (although one of them appeared to be drinking water not milk), to essentially cease and desist. In fact, the inspector was asking at least one of them to get off the train and go with him to the station staff room, where the baby could drink "in comfort".WHAT THE...!??Come on. Surely that has got to be absolutely ridiculous and uncalled-for. First, you are talking about babies and toddlers drinking out of milk bottles -- the risk of leakage or spillage is pretty low. Second, you are asking them to get off the train to go with you to your staff room, just so their babies and toddlers can drink -- that's got to take at least 30 minutes, if not more! Third, well, you are talking about babies and toddlers!The SMRT inspector was, to his credit, very polite and patient. But still!There is a Latin phrase called "reductio ad absurdum", meaning "reduction to the absurd". To quote Wikipedia, it is "a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence". Well, SMRT is certainly taking its rule against eating and drinking on trains to its absurd conclusion.My wife felt that this showed how Singapore is so much about binary states and dichotomies: "yes/no", "right/wrong", "black/white". There is little or no discretion or common sense employed, when rules are being enforced. She's clearly right, of course. (You might say that, yes, of course I would say that!)But my own takeaway from the clip, was about how Singapore rule-makers frequently make rules that punish the innocent majority, for the infractions of a small minority. In this case, it was a small minority of commuters who were eating and drinking on trains and generally being anti-social and inconsiderate. Well, crack down on them! But SMRT clearly went overboard and is punishing everyone for the actions of a few, instead of focusing its enforcement efforts only on those few.The web story also noted that most of the "offenders" were secondary school kids eating bread and drinking water. Hardly the most offensive of conduct. Indeed, I wonder how many of the 143 so-called offenders were caught for sucking on a lozenge, which ranks right up there for absurdity, next to telling parents to take their babies and toddlers off the train so that they can get a drink out of milk bottles.What a joke and waste of time, effort and money this whole thing is. The "market" as deus ex machina (or, The Scapegoat For Rising Housing Prices and Other Inconvenient Realities) Today’s newspapers (both TODAY and The Straits Times) featured comments by National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan about rising prices in the public housing market."It's in the interest of buyers to have low COVs, but it's in the interest of sellers who own the flats to have high COVs. So, between these two groups, we must let them fight it out. The Government is not able to settle or fix COVs to say that it should be this or this figure. The Government prefers not to interfere. But we can interfere in the supply. This is something we can control.” In short, the Government will not set or fix prices directly -- but it will indirectly influence prices by manipulating the factors that affect prices. In particular, the Government will influence supply, and then leave it to the magic of “the market” to set prices. These latest statements are consistent with what Mr Mah told Parliament back in April, that the Government intended to leave the purchase of resale flats by first-time flat buyers "to the market"."Leave it to the market" is a rationale that is often trotted out, to justify why the Government should not intervene in something or other, be it rising housing prices or rising COE prices. But government policy can have a huge impact on prices (and sentiment, which can drive prices in markets like property), as implicitly acknowledged by Mr Mah when he talked about ramping up supply as a way to moderate price increases.In this case, what’s ironic is that the Government is now scrambling to fix a problem that is largely of its own creation. Why are housing prices rising so quickly? Here are some likely reasons, all linked to Government policy from the last few years:Recent HDB changes making it easier for HDB owners to rent out the entire flats. After living in the HDB flat for a few years (I think 5 years in most cases), HDB owners can now rent out their entire flats even after upgrading to private property. Previously, they would have had to sell their HDB flats if they want to move into private property. Well, not any more. This has been portrayed as a liberalization, and hence presumably A Good Thing. But the reality is that it keeps potential supply off the resale market -- I suspect that many HDB-owners who upgrade to private property actually keep their HDB flats as an investment property to rent out. In fact, HDB flats strongly outperform private apartments in terms of rental yield.The influx of foreigners. I work with a lot of foreigners, and I think in many cases they do bring net benefits to Singapore. In light of our immigrant roots and as a matter of necessity, I do think we have to be open to foreigners. But I also believe that we are close to the creaking limits of our country’s present infrastructure; that the rate of increase in recent years has been too fast; and that this influx has limited the opportunities available to locals. In other words, the Government did not think through the costs of such a rapid increase in the foreign population in Singapore (costs which are of course not captured in the GDP figure), and continues to disregard these costs. The Government’s approach of “sharpening the differences” between citizens and foreigners misses the point, because it focuses on increasing prices for foreigners, which only makes life harder for them without making life better for citizens.The ease with which foreigners could become permanent residents (PR), thereby qualifying to purchase HDB flats. I know of at least one foreigner whose PR application was approved in 3 weeks or so. This has massively increased demand for public housing, hence driving up prices. The absolute number of PRs purchasing HDB flats may constitute a fraction of the overall HDB-purchasing population, but you actually only need a small number of purchasers bidding up prices at the margins, for overall property prices to increase.The rise of en-bloc sales over the past decade. I’m told that a popular retirement strategy for older folks who cashed out from en-bloc sales, is to buy a HDB flat in cash and then live off the massive cash balance left over for the rest of their retirement. The lax rules for en-bloc sales therefore channels cash-flush buyers into the HDB resale market, hence the advent of near-million-dollar HDB flats.HDB’s dogmatic adherence to its Build-To-Order (BTO) model. Burnt from the huge supply overhang of public flats when it massively over-built in the face of the HDB bull market that ended in 1996, HDB now only builds flats when it is confident of selling most of the flats built. This means that HDB will launch a project (i.e. start taking orders from interested buyers), but only start construction when most of the flats (I think at least 70%) have been booked. This avoids a supply overhang, which means that the cost of public funds being tied up in unsold public housing (which is saved by the Government) is transferred to citizens, who end up bearing the cost of a longer waiting period for new flats. In addition, the delay in getting a flat drives potential buyers to the resale market. This in turn pushes up resale prices, which actually then increases BTO prices down the road since BTO flats are priced at a discount to the then-prevailing market price. So this policy is a vicious cycle that delivers a double whammy (if not more) to prospective buyers.But most fundamentally, increasing HDB prices marks the coming to roost of the Government’s deliberate (and much ballyhooed) policy of making one’s flat a financial asset for retirement purposes. This works only if flat prices increase over time – otherwise, they would make really bad investments that are unsuitable for retirement. By mixing up the public policy goals of providing affordable accommodation and helping citizens plan for their retirement, the Government has ended up achieving neither, with public housing becoming increasing unaffordable and many retirees being asset-rich and cash-poor.The point that I ultimately want to make, is that the “leave it to the market” message is deceptive when the bearer of the message is able to manipulate the market. Markets do not exist in vacuums, but are instead influenced by government regulations and policies. So when the Government declines to intervene or to change the underlying rules, it is really a conscious political decision to maintain the status quo.In such cases, the “market” becomes a convenient scapegoat for a mess that’s really of one’s own creation. A deus ex machine, if you will, that conveniently resolves an inconvenient political truth.So the next time a government official or politician talks about “leaving it to the market”, or blames the market for something or other, be a little bit more questioning. Drill deeper and find out if that person is really helpless to influence the market. I would bet that’s not the case in most cases. More on 50-year floods A reader recently pointed out that a "50-year flood" is not literally a once-in-50-years flood. Quite educational for me, actually.So that made for a really good segue to a full-page article on page A8 of today's ST (July 22, 2010), headlined "100mm: Expect floods if this much rain falls in an hour". Here are my key takeaways from the piece:Flooding can be expected when more than 100mm of rain falls in an hour.Out of those 10 occasions, 8 resulted in floods.Out of those 10 occasions, 2 were in 2009, 3 in 2008, 2 in 2007 and 3 in 2006. In other words, we've been getting the so-called 50-year flood two or three times a year. If that is the case, then based on the USGS explanation of a 50-year flood, we probably need to re-define what a 50-year flood means in our context.The highest one-hour rainfall ever recorded was 148mm in November 1995. The last 10 such occasions highlighted in the article (which seemed to exclude the recent floods) ranged from 101mm to 137mm.By comparison, the 16 June storm that flooded Orchard Road saw 101.6mm in 2 hours. Averaged over 2 hours, that was about half the rainfall of the top 10 recorded rainfalls from 2006 to 2009.On the other hand, the more recent storm on 17 July brought down 114mm at Lower Pierce Reservoir, but 194mm at Poole Road in Tanjong Katong.PUB lists 52 low-lying, flood-prone zones. Presumably, these make up the 66 hectares of flood-prone areas today (yes yes, down from 3,178 hectares in the 1970s, as PUB, Dr Yaacob and others have reminded us). And yet, the recent areas flooded, such as Orchard Road, Opera Estate and Jalan Boon Lay, are not on that list.Having read the articles, some questions came to mind.Did Dr Yaacob have the statistics at hand, when he described the first, 16 June storm as being "once in 50 years", when the statistics clearly show that it wouldn't even have made the top 10 over the past 5 years?What has changed, for Orchard Road to suddenly become a flood-prone zone now? The (new) official line is that Stamford Canal could not handle the amount of rain coming down. But the statistics show that in absolute terms, the amount of rainfall coming down on 16 June was not truly an outlier. So could it have, as some have speculated, been due to all the construction and development work, that has changed the run-off patterns such that a lot more water went into the Stamford Canal than previously? Or some other reason? Instead of saying that the Stamford Canal could not drain the amount of water going into it and then thinking solely on widening the canal, why are we not asking why the amount of water going into the canal was so much more compared to before?Does the "66-ha of flood-prone areas" statistic still hold true today? What is PUB's methodology in identifying these areas, and updating this list?Did the National Climate Change Committee even look at flooding as a possible result of climate change? Because looking at its website, that did not seem to be a focus area at all. So much for scenario planning.It's of course true that Singapore cannot be completely flood-proof. But I don't think anyone is really asking for that. Talking about half of Singapore becoming canals is a straw man argument that ignores the real point.I think what has shocked and upset people, are the scope and location of the floods that have been occurring, and the Government's cavalier response so far. Frankly, if the flooding had been limited to the recognised flood-prone areas (i.e. those on PUB's list), I'm pretty sure there would not have been the amount of backlash that has arisen.But they are not, they are in new areas, including very highly visible Orchard Road, and the Government did not know what was going on and seemed more interested in maintaining its not-to-be-blamed Teflon coating than in digging in and figuring out what really happened -- the first step to finding a solution. That was what was most disappointing.Finally, I just wanted to say kudos to Victoria Vaughan, the ST journalist who wrote the story in today's ST. I suspect she knew exactly what she was doing, laying out all the facts for discerning readers to figure out what the real questions are. If only she could (or had the editorial leeway to) ask those questions in the article itself. MARUAH Pillar Talk #2: Trial Observation This is a MARUAH event for next Friday. Promises to be interesting. Sorry seems to be the hardest word So Elton John once sang. I don't know if our ministers are his fans, but they certainly seem to have taken that to heart as a motto.The latest to bear that out is Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. Frankly, that has always seemed to be a bit of an unexciting, boring post -- but boy has he been in the hot seat over the past two months.It's all thanks to the heavy rain that has variously been ascribed to us being a tropical country (duh), La Nina (which should not be a surprise since it is a cyclical phenomenon), and even Typhoon Conson (despite it being over 2000km away). It even got so that another minister asked PUB, the key agency under Dr Yaacob's charge, to explain the flooding.And despite a whole barrage of questions in Parliament yesterday (resulting in front page covers, headline news and multiple-page coverage in the Straits Times and other papers), nary a single "sorry". No apology, no admission of error or fault, nada.Nevermind that the original reason given by Dr Yaacob for the first Orchard flood was that the Stamford Canal was blocked, but otherwise it was adequate -- but now actually it was not adequate and could not drain quickly enough (front page news today). Nevermind that it took three, yes three, floods in two months before our million-dollar salarymen could figure out that it might be a good idea to issue public warnings about potential flooding (and even now that's still not been decided).Nevermind that his comment that the first flood was a "once in 50 years" event in terms of intensity has now come home to roost, given that the second flood was just as heavy and the third flood even more so. Nevermind that we also had a flood in November 2009, that Dr Yaacob also described as "once in 50 years".Are we then in the year 2210, since presumably we've had 4 once-in-50-years events?Today's Straits Times covered the Q&A in Parliament yesterday. The first question was from Ms Lee Bee Wah, referring to "three floods" in one month and without any reference to Orchard Road. Dr Yaacob's opening statement was:"In the last one month, we have seen three intense storms. Only two caused flooding in Orchard Road, not all three. The June 25 flood did not cause any flooding. No, Orchard Road was not flooded. We have to be precise."I am a lawyer. Precision is one of my catchwords. But this was not precision. Quite the reverse, this was obfuscating the question. Ms Lee did not refer to Orchard Road. Ms Lee did not mention the flooding of Orchard Road. Ms Lee did not talk about how shops in Liat Towers have given up on re-opening until the flood risk has been addressed. The reply was quite telling and revealing of where Dr Yaacob's head was at.Perhaps the apparent obsession with Orchard Road was due to the bad press Singapore has received thanks to the floods, for example in Australia. This must all have been a slap in the face for a government so obsessed about foreign rankings and benchmarking against other countries.I was in Bali when the first flood struck, but it was big news there. A friend was in Lombok then, and he said the locals were laughing at Singapore, asking how could this happen.How could this happen, indeed. I am normally reluctant to reactively blast the government for mistakes and errors. This is the real world, things go wrong and people make mistakes. On most things (obvious exceptions are national security etc), it is OK for people to make a mistake once -- that is a learning opportunity.But I have zero to low tolerance for a repeated mistake. Making the same mistake again only suggests that nothing has been learnt from the first mistake, and that is unforgivable. Not confronting the truth squarely and admitting errors simply means that the problem has not been openly acknowledged and so will not be fixed.Insisting that the system is fine and the problem arose only because of an external circumstance beyond anyone's control (e.g. blocked grating at the Stamford Canal causing the first flood), without properly investigating the reasons why, smacks of groupthink, with the group convincing itself that the system works and the problem must be something else. Telling us that we will never be flood-proof and so we should simply suck it up, smacks of evasion of responsibility. Reversing the position on the cause without admitting an error and apologising, simply smacks of hubris and arrogance.I contrast this with the apology by DBS CEO Piyush Gupta, when IBM apparently caused the failure of DBS's systems. (I still don't understand how multiple layers of redundancy could be trashed by one single error -- isn't that the whole point of multiple layers of redundancy?) He came out, owned the problem, publicly and openly explained the reasons without taichi-ing, and apologised. Thrice.Mr Gupta received kudos for that response. This is not some petty demand for an apology to make myself feel better, or some sort of bloodlust for heads to roll. This is about knowing that the people responsible know that they are responsible, which is the first step towards fixing the problem. Because it's not just about widening or deepening the Stamford Canal, this is about re-evaluating how MEWR and PUB do things and designs the flood system and figuring out how to avoid more repetitions.This is about feeling that our ministers truly and sincerely understand the pain they've caused, and by that I mean pain to all Singaporeans, if only because of the sheer embarrassment around the world. This is about setting an example for all Singaporeans, to say that everyone is accountable, and that leaders are the most accountable.Very simply, this is about Doing The Right Thing.There were a couple of debates in Parliament when Mas Selamat escaped. I spoke at one of them, asking for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Mr Wong Kan Seng to apologise to Singaporeans for a whole chain of errors in domestic security (Mas Selamat, letting people through airport security with the wrong passport, etc). The Second Minister for Home Affairs Mr K. Shanmugam replied on his behalf, and neither offered an apology nor touched on it.This is a flaw that seems to afflict so many, if not most, of our political leaders. It reinforces the disaffection that Catherine Lim first wrote about almost 20 years ago. It suggests an arrogance in those who are supposed to serve the people. It puts into question whether the government feels accountable or responsible to the people.All we want, is to hear someone responsible say sorry. And yet it seems so hard. Transcript of Dr Lim Hock Siew's speech A text transcript is here, courtesy of some, er, livestock. And to be clear, and to again show the pointlessness of this entire exercise by the Government, the posting of this transcript does not violate the Acting Minister's order banning the film. Why censorship is evil When I signed the Arts Community Position Paper on Censorship and Regulation, one of the ArtsEngage folks emailed me asking if I could blog about it. I wanted to, but never quite got around to it. Until now.The catalyst was the ban on Martyn See's film on Dr Lim Hock Siew. I won't go into the substantive content of the film, or the comments by Dr Lim -- that is for another day and another forum, and I will only say here that detaining someone for 19 years without trial is quite unacceptable, to say the least. But I will talk about censorship.The point here is that this was a factual recording of a speech, nothing more nothing less. No deceptive editing, no emotive music, no crafty juxtaposition of images. So the usual arguments trotted out by the Government about the "special emotive power" of film do not apply.If there was anything in this film that could possibly be the subject of a bandeserved to be banned, it would have to be the words used by Dr Lim. If his speech was somehow illegal or unlawful, then the authorities should go after him for having made that speech and used those words. Go to the source and address the root problem, so to speak. Instead, the Government has chosen to suppress the film, without prosecuting Dr Lim for the speech. If the speech itself was lawful, then how can the possession or distribution of the film be unlawful? Why should the film be banned? How can the recording of words be somehow more illegal than the words themselves? And if Dr Lim had acted unlawfully, so much so that the Government saw fit to take action and ban the film, then why are they not prosecuting him?And so we get to the nub of the matter. Censorship by administrative fiat, as in this case, allows the censor to hide and suppress inconvenient or unfavourable facts, ideas and/or words, regardless of whether those facts, ideas and/or words are true, justified or lawful. It gives the censor a convenient tool that obviates any need to confront or address the facts, ideas and/or words in question. It denies one's right to speak words that are lawful. And the fact that all this can be done, in itself has a censoring effect.That is the nature of censorship in Singapore. That is why I signed the ArtsEngage paper. That is why regulation and not censorship has to be the way.And this case shows why the Internet is such a powerful tool against censorship. The Acting Minister's order was for Martyn to take down all copies of the film uploaded by him onto YouTube and his blog. Well, the video is already widely available elsewhere, presumably thanks to the efforts of others subsequent to the issuance of the order. Martyn can comply fully with the letter of the order, without affecting the availability of the film on the Internet.(As an aside, there may in fact be a procedural flaw in this exercise by MDA. They served on Martyn a letter from BFC and a press release from MICA, but it seems, at least from his blog, that the actual order by the Acting Minister was not served on him. This may be a procedural defect. How do we know whether or not an actual order has been signed, or that even if signed, it was without defect? A defect in the order can render it null and void -- ironically, a legal principle recognised by Dr Lim in the film when he recounted how the court once ordered his release because the detention order was signed by a civil servant instead of the Minister, as was required.)Ultimately, this is again another exercise where Singapore is embarrassed (EDB and STB can do all the branding and marketing campaigns they want, but actions speak louder than words and incidents like this shout things out loud), with very little real effect. Well, I should correct myself -- maybe this incident has had a net positive effect. After all, the film is still available and has received a lot of free publicity, and the spotlight has been cast yet again on the dangers of censorship. Doesn't one-third passing mean two-thirds failing? There was such a blatantly unthinking spin-job (or absolutely rubbish journalism) in today's Sunday Times, that I simply had to blog about it. This was "1 in 3 foreigners passes new Service Literacy Test", on page 6.So there's a new English proficiency test for foreign service staff that was introduced by MOM in May. This was presumably in response to ongoing complaints by locals about foreign service staff having a poor or limited, sometimes even non-existent, command of English, widely recognised as a critical common unifying language in ethnically diverse Singapore.140 people have taken it to date, out of which one-third have passed. One would think the logical headline would be that two-thirds of the workers who took the test failed -- certainly that is what immediately came to my mind.And when you read the accompanying box, it gets better. This is apparently one of the questions from the test:Guest: Excuse me, can you give me an extra bottle of shampoo?Housekeeper: Certainly, Sir. Do you need anything else... extra soap or towels?Guest: No, just the shampooQuestion: What does the man want?a. More shampoob. More soapc. More towelsCome on! That was the standard of English proficiency being tested, and two-thirds failed?? And yet the headline led with "1 in 3 foreigners passes"?? That was either pure spin or poor journalism -- but so blatantly done that I couldn't let it pass.Update/correction: There was a grammatical error in the original question which I've corrected -- that was all mine, and was not in the original article. Pay-TV changes: A new distortion? This was published in the TODAY newspaper on 15 March 2010. The only thing I'd add is that the bandwidth question will go away when the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network comes onstream.Pay-TV changes: A new distortion?PUBLIC sentiment has finally moved the mountain that is the Media Development Authority (MDA). With the prospect of not getting to watch the World Cup live still looming large, the MDA has finally reversed its longstanding position on exclusive carriage deals for pay-TV content.Last Friday, the Government announced that pay-TV operators would now have to allow competitors to carry all new exclusive content.This finally addresses consumers' increasingly bitter complaints about the bidding wars for football content between StarHub and SingTel.This applies only to exclusive content acquired or renewed since last Friday. So SingTel will retain its exclusive rights to the English Premier League for the next three seasons, and consumers who want to watch both EPL and, say, HBO will still need two set-top boxes for now.It has taken seven years for this change to come. MDA started examining exclusive carriage agreements in 2003; announced its findings that they did not forestall competition in 2006; and conducted a triennial review in 2007 that did not address such agreements, despite the rumoured astronomical sum paid by StarHub in 2006 for the 2007-2010 EPL rights.It was only when SingTel wrested the 2010-2013 EPL rights from StarHub for another reportedly astronomical sum, and football fans began protesting the implications, that the Government's position began to shift. The finding by MDA's study that the proliferation of exclusive carriage arrangements here was actually an international anomaly probably sealed the deal. One can only wonder why such a study was not done earlier.Competition in the pay-TV market has yielded some positive outcomes. For instance, SingTel has introduced new content, and its season pass product is an innovation that genuinely increases consumer choice. So the fundamental premise that competition can benefit consumers is correct.Where MDA had earlier fallen short, was in failing to correctly identify the bidding wars for football content as a market failure that needed a regulatory response. Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew's description of the situation as a "market failure that is evident" was therefore welcome.There have been warning signs, such as the spiralling cost of EPL content and the ongoing fiasco over the World Cup. Indeed, the proverbial canary in the mine positively screamed last June, when English broadcaster Setanta filed for bankruptcy. It had overpaid for EPL rights, but could not attract enough customers to recoup its high costs.That could have been Singapore's road to ruin, if MDA had allowed the destructive battles between StarHub and SingTel to continue. Indeed, SingTel and StarHub appeared to have recognised the potential for mutually assured destruction, when they submitted a joint bid for the World Cup rights.Devil in the detailThe questions now are whether the proposed solution will work, and whether it introduces new distortions or problems.All new exclusive content obtained by an operator must be offered to other operators, and the other operators must carry such exclusive content offered.This has interesting and unclear repercussions.First and foremost, exclusive carriage agreements will probably become less common. It would now make more sense for an operator to insist on non-exclusive arrangements, and differentiate itself through innovative content packaging. Genuine increased differentiation will enhance consumer choice, which would be a positive outcome. MDA has said it will work with the industry on the details, and that is where the devil lies.Given that SingTel and StarHub use their respective networks to deliver other services (such as broadband) besides pay-TV, how will they ensure that their networks have sufficient bandwidth to cater for all these services, the increase in high-definition content, and also other operators' exclusive content?How will exclusive pay-per-view content be shared and billed?It is also as yet unclear how content owners will respond. For instance, what if content owners insist on exclusive arrangements, and the operators decline to pay the higher costs associated with exclusivity and forego the content? How will MDA respond to this?The move to have all exclusive content carried by all operators was perhaps unexpected by most observers. Perhaps, a less intrusive approach could have been to require only certain MDA-designated "critical content", such as EPL rights, be made available to all players, which would be similar to the concept of "essential facilities" in the telco world. But that opens the Pandora's box: What is "critical content" besides EPL?The pay-TV market has still not stabilised. This change will result in even greater flux. M1's enthusiastic reception suggests that it is emboldened to enter the pay-TV market, and thinks its ability to present a viable triple-play offering has been strengthened.But first and foremost, let's hope that Fifa takes its cue from the Government and recognises that SingTel's bid for the EPL rights was not sustainable, and hence the asking price for the World Cup rights ought to be reduced.If that happens, then Singaporeans will praise this policy change and its very immediate results.The writer is a corporate counsel and former Nominated Member of Parliament. Politics and policy-making Last Friday, I spoke to a class of NIE students. These were Masters students doing a class on curriculum in Singapore, and it seems that the tutor has traditionally done a forum in the last class of the course. I spoke together with NMP Viswa Sadasivan and Ms Lisa Lee, a JC teacher.I talked about various things, and two of the questions I posed for the class were:Who are the people making policies in education -- the politicians and bureaucrats, or the educational professionals?And what are their motivations in policy-making?The point I was trying to drive at, is that policies -- in general, not just in education -- are frequently or usually made by politicians and bureaucrats, who may not or are usually not subject-matter experts in the particular area. The policies may be, at least partly, consciously or unconsciously motivated or driven by extraneous considerations.I am not saying that policies are self-serving or are designed in such a way as deliberately benefit any particular class or that policy-makers do not sincerely believe that the policies are for the best. But I am saying that when politicians and bureaucrats make policy, especially in complex specialised areas like education, they may be driven by other considerations.So what to make of Dr Ng Eng Hen's disclosure that the Ministry of Education is re-looking the relative weightage of Mother Tongue in the PSLE examinations? This is the latest in a long line of moves to reduce the consequences of students doing poorly in Mother Tongue, largely in response to longstanding complaints from certain parents and students about the difficulty in doing well in Chinese.I don't have a great command of Chinese -- it's not even remotely near good. I can just about read a Chinese newspaper article, with some struggle and a fair bit of contextual guesswork -- having a dictionary helps a lot, but doesn't really speed things up all that much. Nowadays, I am almost exclusively English-speaking -- I speak Mandarin mostly to my mum, frequently to the office pantry auntie, and otherwise to service staff. The decline in my Chinese grades began in Primary 3, and culminated in an E8 the first time I took 'AO' Chinese -- by some fluke, I scored an A2 my second time. That's one instance where the truth probably literally lies somewhere in between.So if anything, I'm a prime candidate to sympathise with the complaints of the English-speaking chattering classes. Except that I don't, not really.After all, the playing field is level. Everybody goes through the same exam. We don't move the English-language academic goalposts for those who don't speak English at home and accordingly have a weak command of English (not coincidentally, they also tend to be from the lower- if not lowest-income households) -- why then do we always move the Mother Tongue (specifically, Chinese) academic goalposts for those who don't speak Mandarin at home and accordingly have a weak command of Chinese (who, not coincidentally, tend to come from the other end of the socio-economic spectrum)? [and the Learning Support Programme in P1 and P2 for kids who are week in English is not given enough time or resources to make a difference -- 30 minutes per day is far from enough and smacks of lip service]We talk about meritocracy and equity of opportunity -- in fact, the Government consistently boasts about it. But true meritocracy and equity of opportunity assumes that the ground rules are fair to all, and do not permit hidden biases (admittedly perhaps unconsciously-held) resulting in different rules for different folks.What flabbergasted me then, was the suggestion that the current PSLE weightage for Mother Tongue may be too high, because it deprived otherwise-deserving kids of places in so-called top secondary schools. When I read that, I thought there was some kind of disproportionate weightage. Well, Mother Tongue counts for 25% -- I know lawyers are supposed to be lousy at Math, but that seems about right to me since there are 4 subjects at PSLE. Seems fair to me.Looked at it another way, reducing the weightage for Mother Tongue effectively advantages (in a relative sense) those who are unable (for whatever reason) to do well in Mother Tongue. Why don't we reduce the weightage for Math, for those who are great at multiple languages but really suck at numbers? Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses, why is one particular set of weaknesses picked out for crutches and other special treatment?And really, is the inability to get into a so-called top secondary school really the end of the world? That is cited as the driving motivation to re-look the weightage for Mother Tongue -- but in the same breadth, we talk about the need for different measures of success beyond academic results. Irony and mixed messages, anyone?Perspective is important in policy-making, to remain objective and keep an even keel. I don't see too much of that in this particular case. Feeding community cats "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated" - Mahatma GandhiWe have a dog and four cats. Our latest is a three-legged Siamese-cross kitten that my wife and I found near our estate one night. One of her legs is just a stump (you can just see it in this picture) -- it's a clean break, so it wasn't natural. The vet thinks it was either a trap, or something (say, a bike) ran over the leg, or she lost it in a fight. We named her Mei-Mei -- she's almost 7 months old, and has really come a long way.We found her only because we were feeding the community cats (aka stray cats) outside our estate. We heard the mewing as we were feeding the cats, and found her crouching in the shrubs, staring hungrily -- but fearfully and warily -- at us. We feel lucky to have found her. In fact, all of our pets are strays -- the dog was my wife's, picked up as a puppy from a drain, and our other three cats were all kittens found by other people and adopted by us. We've actually found another orphaned before, whom we fostered for a bit before we managed to re-home her with someone -- we found Coco's mother dead one day, for reasons unknown.We feed the cats every night. There used to be a couple of ladies who would also feed the cats, but gradually they stopped (one moved away, I don't know what happened to the other one. Now it's just my wife and I, and another lady who comes around about once a week.We started feeding them because we found them pitiful, or in local parlance, very "poor thing". (As an aside, I'd be keen to know if anyone has a "proper" English translation for "poor thing"!) They have to survive the rain, the traffic, this that the other -- we didn't want them to also have to go hungry or cause a nuisance when foraging for food.As the cats became more familiar with us, they became so affectionate. The ones nearest our estate would wait outside our gate if we are a bit later than usual in coming out to feed them, and would scamper towards us the moment we open the side-gate and step out. In fact, sometimes they actually just sit and wait outside the side-gate!They are not afraid of us, and will run along beside us (or more likely, keep running across our path and thereby trip us up) as we walk towards the designated feeding spots. Some of them would keep trying to rub themselves against our calves. And they all purr oh so loudly as they eat the food voraciously.Very often, I wanted so badly to just gather up all of them in my arms and cuddle them. It will never happen though -- they are not used to it, so any attempt to do that will almost certainly just result in a multitude of scratches.So we worry when they are hungry, because some of them are on the other side of a busy road and so sometimes try to run across the road when they see us coming. And we are very sad, when any cat we've been feeding stops showing up, because the odds are pretty much stacked against it. And we feel guilty about taking holidays, because what will happen to the (our) cats?I initially saw the nightly cat-feeding as a chore. But after a while, I began to look forward to it, when I realised that it was actually good for me. It would calm me down however stressed I was, and it soothed me in a way that few things could. After feeding them, I would invariably feel glad in the knowledge that they were all safe and sound for another night. Small mercies can go a long way.Not many people understand why feeders do what we do. Maybe that's because not many people feed. I firmly believe that only those who do it will truly understand. But even short of that, I think people should be able to understand the sense of compassion that drives feeders to do what we do. I will always remember what my then-new helper said, to my great embarrassment, when she found out that my wife and I feed the cats around our area: "Oh, you must be good people!"I have tremendous respect for a lot of feeders, who go way beyond what my wife and I do -- they organise, they advocate for the cats they take care of, they engage with and mediate between town councils and unhappy residents, and very often they foster cats for rehoming. All for some furballs to whom they really owe no obligation or duty, other than a general sense that we need to take care of and protect the defenceless and those less fortunate than us, human and otherwise. All out of their own time and money. That is true selfless altruism, because there really is nothing in it for anyone.And you know, while it is an extremely fragmented circle, the fact remains that animal welfare groups are a fantastic example of successful grassroots activism: completely ground-up, spontaneous and responsive, passionate and devoted to the cause, geographically-dispersed, well-organised and highly-networked, and most importantly and most strikingly of all, largely self-funding even if it is largely shoestring.Siamese-y, Sissy Soo, Blackie, Phantom, and the Fuglies, thank you for brightening up my nights and lightening my spirits. I only hope more people get to enjoy such moments with your little furry kindred. And to Little One and Reverse Panda Eyes, I hope you are OK wherever you are, but if not at least you are in a better place. Yes, I know the names probably either don't make sense or sound completely random to anyone other than us -- blame that on us, not the cats.PS. To feeders and would-be feeders, please do familiarise yourselves with the dos and don'ts of feeding -- you can check out the materials available at the Cat Welfare Society website and the Singapore Community Cats blog. "Calling Singapore Home" on Al Jazeera's 101 East I was part of a panel on Al Jazeera's 101 East programme last week. The YouTube videos seem to have been making the rounds in the forums and blogosphere already, but here they are anyway.Part 1Part 2 Social Activism @ NTU This is a series of talks organised by the NTU Sociological Society. I will be speaking on 28 Jan.The Social Activism series seeks to analyze social issues from various sociological perspectives and draw links across concepts such as class, gender and globalization. Through the sharing sessions, we hope to raise awareness, understanding and discussion of upcoming social trends and to address misconceptions.As Singapore becomes more integrated into the global economy, new social trends arise and more people are falling behind. It is hence essential to discuss and understand about such trends as it helps people in making sense of the community that we live in. In addition, there is a need for proper understanding of social issues, since youths will be the future stewards of the country.Speakers & Venue:>>> 19th Jan: Asst. Professor Saidul Islam (NTU HSS Division of Sociology) - Socio-Environmental Activism (NTU LT12, North Spine)>>> 21st Jan: Mr. Jolovan Wham (Executive Director, Humanitarian Organization for Migratory Economics) - Migrant workers: Misrepresented, Misunderstood, Mistreated (NTU HSS Seminar room 8)>>> 26th Jan: Mr. Alex Au (yawningbread.org) (People Like Us) - “Feminism & Sexuality” Its relevance today: Innate? Choice? Sharing of differing viewpoints (NTU LT12, North Spine)>>> 28th Jan: Mr. Siew Kum Hong (MARUAH) (former-NMP Jan 07 - July 09) - New media and Political Participation in Singapore (NTU HSS Seminar room 8)Timing: 1730 - 1930hrsDirections can be found at: http://ntuss.blogspot.com/Programme Outline1730-1740 --> Guests to be seated1740-1745 --> Opening Address1745-1845 --> Discussion/Talk by Speaker1845-1915 --> Q & A1915-1920 --> Closing~ 1930 --> EndNote: Closed door session - NO video-recording unless allowed by speakerThis event is brought to you by NTU Sociological Society. whose Right is it anyway?: 31 October 2009 I received this in my inbox. Please note that the location is currently TBD -- while some other sites publicising this event list the location as SMU, I understand that the location will be changed. (Disclosure: I am a member of MARUAH, and will be moderating a session at this event. And the flyer is er courtesy of TOC!)Dear Friends,MARUAH, a local human rights advocacy group, is organising a youth human rights workshop together with UNYAS on the 31st October 2009, 9.00am to 5.30pm at [location TBD]. Entitled 'whose Right is it anyway?', some of you might be interested in attending this workshop.This workshop aims to raise awareness about human rights and sensitise young people to the everyday human rights issues surrounding them, and would feature well-known speakers along with specially designed small-group sessions to engage in human rights.What YOU can gain out of this: - Learn more about the basics of human rights and what it can mean to you.- Join in the interactive session and discussions on rights- Taking the step forward to get involved in the rights discussion that is slowly gaining momentum in our country.- Get the opportunity to meet other youths who come to the event with diverse point of views.Registration is required for this event. You can find out more about the event here: http://maruah.org/2009/10/08/yhrw/ or see the attached eflyer for details.Thanks! Consultation Workshop (22 Aug): “Engaging the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) – The People’s Views”: 22 August 2009 Disclosure: I am part of MARUAH.When the ASEAN Charter was signed 2 years ago, it contained a clause requiring the establishment of an ASEAN human rights body. This clause was deliberately kept short and vague, so as to get all the ASEAN countries to agree to it. There was no definition to the body, nothing on its scope, powers, and composition.Well, the Terms of Reference for the body (now called the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights) have been agreed. The next phase in this process is for the governments to appoint their representatives to the Commission.MARUAH (Singapore Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism) is therefore holding a public Consultation Workshop on the Commission and the selection of Singapore's representative to the Commission, on 22 August, 8.30am to 3.45pm. All are invited and it is free. Online registration can be completed here. Please attend if you have any interest in human rights. National Day 2009: thoughts on being Singaporean The NDP organising committee asked me to contribute something to the NDP website. So I wrote this. It's been awhile since I've written something like this, so it took some time to get back into the groove.Also, when I first looked at the website, some of the articles (e.g. by Prof Tommy Koh and Viswa Sadasivan) were long and thoughtful, and I thought I'd better match up to those standards. I wanted this piece to be thoughtful and reflective, but more importantly I wanted it to be authentic and heartfelt, and not a cliched collection of stereotypical platitudes and jingoistic rhetoric.When I was done, I was unsure about it. It's a little bittersweet and not rah-rah at all. I'm sure some will even find it negative and a downer. In fact, I considered including Alfian Sa'at's quote ("If you care too much about Singapore, first it’ll break your spirit, and finally it will break your heart.") but decided that it went too far and also it was not quite correct -- what could break your spirit and heart is not the nation, but the government. But I make no apologies for feeling how I feel, and I really do believe that more Singaporeans agree with my sentiments than may appear to be the case.National Day 2009I wrote this after returning from a business trip. I've always found that being away helps to me to see more sharply, how I feel about Singapore and being Singaporean.I used to enjoy travelling out of Singapore; indeed, at one time I even wanted to emigrate. But it's different now. When I'm away without my wife, I look forward to coming home to her and our pets. When I'm away with my wife, we look at the pictures and videos of our pets on my cellphone. We even worry about the stray cats in our neighbourhood whom we help to feed, about whether the other cat-feeders are taking care of the strays. Nowadays, landing at Changi always brings the sense of comfort and relief of coming home.These sentiments speak to my roots in and my affinity to this country. The sense of acceptance and belonging here is central to the idea of being Singaporean. And I like to think that more Singaporeans share this feeling than not – even those who profess to feel alienated by certain policies in this country, do so because they care so deeply about her.I am currently reading President Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. He begins the book by discussing the deep divisions in American politics today, and then points out that Americans still have more in common than not.I firmly believe that it is the same for Singapore. Quite apart from the universal values shared by most or all human beings, such as hard work, thrift and fillial piety, there are more hopes and values that unite Singaporeans than we sometimes care – or dare – to admit.We are grateful for our amazing progress and growth since independence, which has lifted our standard of living with a speed experienced only in a few other countries. This is thanks to meritocracy and social mobility, which continue to form the bedrock of our system. And so we insist that ability married with hard work must be able to get one everywhere and that being born poor must not sound the death-knell for one's dreams. Because so many of us have benefited from the powerful force of social mobility, we understand the dangers of the growing stratification of our education system.We have an innate sense of justice and equality, of fairness and equity. We are all equal under the law and under the Constitution, and we cry foul at perceived unfairness and bullying tactics. And so we want the administration of our country to be guided not by pragmatism and political expediency but by justice and fairness, which is why we cheer the residents of Potong Pasir and Hougang when they stand fast to these principles and resist the carrot and stick of lift upgrading.We have compassion for the less fortunate, and we empathise and sympathise with others. We know, that there but for the grace of God go ourselves. That is why when disaster strikes our unfortunate fellow human beings elsewhere, we do not stint on aid and support, as with the tsunami of 2004 and the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. That is also why we want the kinder, gentler society that was first mooted years ago, knowing that we are rich enough to do better than $330 per month of Public Assistance for single-person households, even though such households do receive a lot of other help.We value openness and transparency, because we know how important the absence of corruption in Singapore has been to our success, especially in light of the devastating effects of corruption in other countries. We also want to have more say in our destiny, because Singapore is our country and her future is intimately intertwined with ours. These are why we want greater accountability and transparency in how the country is run and how our investments are managed, so that we can be confident that our precious reserves are treated with the due care that they deserve.We need tolerance and understanding of one another and one another's differences, so that persons of faith can practise each of our religions and speak and act openly and freely. But we must all acknowledge the realities of the country we live in, and always stay mindful of other persons' sensitivities and opinions and respect the boundaries required of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society.Most of all, we want a Singaporean Singapore. Just like how we wanted a Malaysian Malaysia and not a Malay Malaysia, we do not want a Chinese, Indian, Malay or Other Singapore. And so we want to celebrate the things that make us all the same and bring us together, and refrain from constantly emphasising our differences such as with the ubiquitous CMIO classification.These are truths and values that many, if not most or all, Singaporeans hold close to their hearts. They may sit uncomfortably with some amongst us. But they are what Singaporeans think and say, in private, in coffeeshops and on the Internet, and the more honestly we confront these hard truths, the sooner we will resolve them and turn these challenges for Singapore into strengths of Singaporeans.So this National Day, let's reflect a little on what really binds Singaporeans together, more than food and our undeniable love for it, the little details of our everyday existence like buying Toto and 4D, and shared experiences like National Service. Let's think about how we can, in each of our own little ways, contribute to making Singapore the happy, prosperous, progressive and democratic society based on justice and equality. And then let's make a start at converting thought into action. Because that is the true commitment of a Singaporean to Singapore.Siew Kum Hong is a corporate counsel and a former Nominated Member of Parliament (2007-2009). Guest piece on Blogtv.sg: Speaker's Corner CCTV cameras This was published on Blogtv.sg earlier today. They asked if I was willing to write something on this, and I obliged. It was an easy decision -- the absurdity of the situation lends itself to criticism.“It was quite ridiculous” – Ex NMP Siew Kum Hong Speaks About Speaker’s Corner CCTV CamerasPosted at 9:44 am under UncategorizedI came to know about the installation of CCTV cameras at Speaker’s Corner on Facebook, when I saw it in my newsfeed. My immediate thought was: “what the…!”Singapore has always struggled with an image problem, in that it is seen as a very tightly controlled society, by both Singaporeans and foreigners. When Speaker’s Corner was first launched in 2000, that was seen as a step forward (albeit a baby step) in terms of expanding the space for public discourse in Singapore. And the Prime Minister’s announcement last year that the regulations governing Speaker’s Corner would be relaxed was also welcomed by most as another baby step forward.So the installation of CCTV cameras would seem to be a significant step backwards. The practical effect is that they may well deter people from speaking or demonstrating at Speaker’s Corner, or to even show up to attend events, for fear of being captured and somehow “marked”.It does not help that the explanations proffered by the police to date have been unconvincing, to say the least. In response to queries from TODAY and The Online Citizen, the police stated that “CCTVs are used to complement Police presence on the ground and to project a greater sense of security. … As part of an on-going initiative to enhance security in the neighbourhoods, Police have been extending CCTV coverage to other parts of the island. Hong Lim Park is one such area. These CCTVs do not record audio inputs and are installed for safety and security.”This response begs further questions, all unanswered. Why was Speaker’s Corner selected for the CCTV installation? And why now? After all, it is usually quiet, if not deserted. Have there been any incidents of crime to warrant a “projection” of a greater sense of security? Does not the police post adjacent to Speaker’s Corner already project a strong sense of security? In what way is that inadequate?When TODAY asked me to comment on this development, I told them that frankly, it was “quite ridiculous”. And I stand by that. We hold Speaker’s Corner up as a sign of how Singapore has opened up, to show that there is room for free speech and a place for demonstrations and protests in Singapore. The Prime Minister even said last year, “So I think there is no need for the police to get involved. … The overall thrust of these changes is to liberalise our society, to widen the space for expression and participation. We encourage more citizens to engage in debate, to participate in building our shared future and we will progressively open up our system even more. …”And then we go and install surveillance cameras. How do you reconcile that most striking symbol of a police state, with the goal of free speech and liberalisation?My own suspicion is that the cameras were installed in advance of the upcoming APEC meeting in Singapore. During the IMF-World Bank meeting in Singapore in 2006, there was a public protest at Speaker’s Corner, as well as an attempt to march to the venue of the meeting. The film Speakers Cornered captured the events of that day. I can only surmise that the CCTV cameras are in anticipation of similar incidents. But at what cost to Singapore?Siew Kum Hong is a former Nominated Member of Parliament (2007-2009), and currently an aspiring civil society activist. While in Parliament, he spoke on a number of issues including ministerial salaries and civil liberties, and he also submitted to Parliament a citizens’ petition bearing over 2000 signatures calling for the repeal of Section 377A of the Penal Code in October 2007. He was also involved in the recent events at the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE). Links for the day A couple of quick links for the day:text of the valedictorian speech by Loo Zihan, which was covered by today's STvideo of the valedictorian speech:moving tribute to Anthony Yeo (RIP) The free market does not protect consumers The Singapore Government is often said to be pragmatic in the extreme, perhaps even to a fault, and not in the least bit dogmatic or ideological. But I've always believed that when it comes to matters of consumer protection, it hews to an ideological adherence to corporatist free market ideals, preferring to leave things to the market instead of regulating to protect Singaporeans.Two recent incidents bring this into sharp focus. Firstly, the slap-on-the-wrist by the MAS on financial institutions over the misselling of structured deposits, which I've posted about. Secondly, the Brookes Business School incident, where it now turns out that RMIT had complained to MOE as early as 2007.The Brookes incident, and indeed all previous fraud cases involving private schools, fundamentally stem from MOE's previous reluctance to regulate the private education sector. Just like how MAS did not, and continues to decline to, closely regulate the sale of high-risk investment productsm, setting the stage for Singapore consumers to lose up to half a billion dollars. Just like how MND steadfastly refused to regulate property agents, until the sheer chutzpah of some ERA agents was exposed in court, and only then did the Ministry start talking about regulating the industry.These instances demonstrate that when it comes to consumer matters, the Government would very much prefer to leave things to the free market, which is as good as saying that the Government would prefer not to regulate to protect consumers, presumably in the name of avoiding imposing additional compliance costs on businesses.I've always wondered about that -- if they are not supposed to engage in prohibited conduct in the first place, then how much incremental costs would they incur, and should they not be incurring those compliance costs in the first place? The reasoning is just too unconvincing. It is nothing short of an abdication of a government's responsibility to protect consumers.If one firmly and sincerely believes in protecting consumers, then one would surely adopt a proactive stance in doing the right thing, and not wait for multiple cases to occur before taking action. As mrbrown tweeted so succinctly, "Must more people kena then act ah?" MAS and structured products A SMS message from a good friend (my best man and my proposer for NMP, actually) this past Friday reminded me that that was officially the last day of my NMP term. Well, as I've been telling people -- life goes on lah.And so will this blog. In the past, I've refrained from posting my quick thoughts here, because I preferred to articulate them in Parliament. Well, since that is no longer a consideration, I hope to post my thoughts more frequently.When MAS announced the outcome of its probe into the misselling of financial institutions and the consequent bans on FIs selling structured products, I felt so disappointed. For the past few months, MAS had been taking its time to complete its probe, while facilitating or even encouraging investors to go through its 3-step dispute resolution process to claim compensation.But it seems quite probable that MAS would have, at an early stage of its investigation, already come across evidence of breaches by the FIs leading to institutionalised misselling. That being so, should not MAS have suspended its 3-step process pending the conclusion of its probe, so that all investors would have the full facts before them before being asked to agree to the FIs' offers of compensation? Has MAS spared a thought for those investors who were offered partial compensation and decided to cut their losses and accept the offers out of exhaustion or desperation? Who should compensate them now? Do they have any recourse for MAS' delay and failure to act?More importantly, MAS' response to the misselling was to slap bans on the FIs in question. But as Leong Sze Hian has pointed out, they are now being prevented from selling products that nobody really wants to buy anyway. They have made their money, their employees have pocketed their bonuses from selling these high-risk products to low-risk-appetite consumers, and now many of their customers are stuck between the rock of partial or no compensation and the hard place of litigation. Once again, consumers end up holding the baby.Surely the better and more responsible solution would have been for MAS to order the FIs to compensate -- in full -- those customers who had purchased structured products from them, in those cases where the FIs had been in breach of the rules. MAS does have the power to do so, under Section 58 of the Financial Advisers Act. That would be the just and equitable thing to do.It would have provided real deterrence to FIs. A comparison with the punishments meted out by the UK's Financial Services Authority in cases of misselling shows very clearly just how inadequate the punishments imposed by MAS are. So much for a world-class supervisory and regulatory regime. No To Rape Parliament debated the Penal Code amendments in 2007. That debate was dominated by the non-repeal of Section 377A. But another important issue was the partial abolition of the marital rape defence, under which it was legally impossible for a husband to rape his wife. My thoughts on this injustice are in my speech.A few Singaporeans have now started a campaign to repeal the remainder of the marital rape defence that remains on the books. I signed the petition earlier today, and I would encourage everyone to join me in expressing your disagreement with the Government's stand that in most situations, it is actually OK for husbands to force their wives to have sex against their wives' consent. NMP results are out I received a notice from Parliament a couple of hours ago -- it was the Second Report of the Special Select Committee on Nominations for Appointment as Nominated Members of Parliament, which I've reproduced below. In short, I was not re-appointed, and the new NMPs (who will be sworn in on 20 July) are:Mr Calvin Cheng Ern Lee Mr Terry Lee Kok HuaMrs Mildred Tan-Sim Beng MeiAssoc Prof Paulin Tay StraughanMr Teo Siong SengMr Viswaroopan s/o Sadasivan Mr Laurence Wee Yoke ThongMs Audrey Wong Wai YenMs Joscelin Yeo Wei LingI am of course disappointed that I was not re-appointed; I felt and continue to feel that I could contribute meaningfully to Parliament for a second term, which is why I applied for it in the first place. Having said that, I am glad that I had the opportunity to serve, and I hope that I had contributed to Parliamentary debate (as the NMP scheme was intended to). Beyond that, it is really for Singaporeans to judge my time in Parliament for themselves.I do want to make one point. There have been some who have said that I misconducted myself as an NMP during the AWARE episode, and/or that my involvement in AWARE was unwise. I am sure that they will say that again, now that the results of the NMP process are out.I have said this before, and I will repeat it here: my involvement in AWARE was in my personal capacity and not as an NMP, and in any case I do not think that I did anything wrong, improper or inappropriate at all. Presumably, those who feel that I was unwise, thought so because of the adverse impact that my public involvement in AWARE would have on my chances for re-appointment.Well, I would like to think that if I had not been re-appointed because of the AWARE incident, and I had known that things would turn out this way, I would still not have done anything differently.From day one, I've promised myself that I would not say or do anything, or refrain from saying or doing anything, simply because it would or might affect my chances of a second term as an NMP if I wanted to re-apply. I felt that that would have defeated the purpose of being an NMP. I wanted to be true to myself, and I did not want to pull any punches. So just as I did not allow the possibility of offending the Government stop me from asking tough questions and making difficult points, I also did not allow the possibility of adverse publicity stop me from my involvement in civil society causes and organisations that I believed in.So my answer to these folks who thought I was unwise, is that perhaps it reflects more on you and your readiness to compromise, than it does on me and my naivete. It is not that I did not think of the possible consequences of my actions; I was fully aware, and I consciously chose to do what I believed -- and continue to believe -- was the right thing.Finally, I would like to wish the new NMPs all the best in their term, and hopefully they will enjoy their time in Parliament as much as I did!SECOND REPORT OF THE SPECIAL SELECT COMMITTEEON NOMINATIONS FOR APPOINTMENTAS NOMINATED MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT The Special Select Committee, appointed pursuant to the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore to nominate persons for appointment by the President as nominated Members of Parliament, has agreed to the following Report:Introduction1 On 14 November 2006, Parliament resolved in accordance with the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore that there shall be nominated Members of Parliament during the term of the Eleventh Parliament. On 18 January 2007, the President, on the nomination of the Special Select Committee of Parliament, appointed nine persons as nominated Members of Parliament for a term of two and a half years. The term of service of the nine nominated Members of Parliament will expire on 17 July 2009 and, under section 4(1) of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, the vacancies that will arise shall be filled by the President by making appointments on the nomination of the Special Select Committee.2 The Members of the Special Select Committee were nominated by the Committee of Selection, with Speaker as ex-officio Chairman. The Committee comprised the following:Chairman: Mr Abdullah Tarmugi (Speaker)Members:Mrs Lim Hwee Hua Mr Low Thia Khiang Mr Mah Bow Tan Mr Masagos Zulkifli BMM Mr Michael Palmer Mr Sam Tan Chin Siong Mrs Josephine TeoInvitation to the General Public to Submit Names of Persons for Consideration by the Committee3 Under sections 2(1) and 2(2) of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, the Special Select Committee decided that an advertisement inviting the general public to submit names of persons for consideration by the Committee be inserted in the Lianhe Zaobao, Berita Harian, Tamil Murasu and The Straits Times on 6 April 2009. Publicity to the information was also given in a press release.4 Submission of names was required to be made on forms obtainable at the office of the Clerk of Parliament. Each form had to be signed by a proposer and a seconder and by not less than four other persons, all of whose names shall appear in a current register of electors. The person to be proposed was also required to complete a curriculum vitae form in which, inter alia, he was required to write an essay on the kind of contribution he hoped to make as a nominated Member of Parliament and to submit written references from two referees sealed in separate envelopes to the Committee. The closing date for the submission of names was 11 May 2009.Formation of Functional Groups5 The Committee decided that it would continue the practice of inviting the six functional groups, namely, business and industry, labour, the professions, tertiary education institutions, social and community service organisations, and media, arts and sports organisations, to submit names of suitable candidates for the Special Select Committee to consider.6 The names of the coordinators appointed by Mr Speaker for each functional group and an invitation to organisations identifying themselves with any of the functional groups to contact the coordinators to propose their nominees were publicised by the Committee in a press release issued on 5 April 2009.Consideration of Persons Proposed7 By the closing date, the Committee received a total of 46 proposal forms (including those from the functional groups) of which 3 did not satisfy the eligibility criteria.8 Section 2(3) of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution provides that, before making any nomination for appointment by the President as nominated Member of Parliament, “the Special Select Committee shall, wherever possible, consult other Members of Parliament in such manner as it thinks fit”.9 On the advice of the Committee, the Speaker wrote to all the elected Members of Parliament on 19 May 2009, informing them of the names of the persons proposed for consideration as nominated Members of Parliament and asking the Members of Parliament if they had any comments on these persons and if they knew of any reason why any of them should not be considered for appointment as nominated Members of Parliament.10 The Committee assessed the suitability of all the 43 eligible candidates. In assessing their suitability for appointment as nominated Members of Parliament, the Committee took into account the criteria set out in section 3(2) of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution which provides that the persons to be nominated by the Special Select Committee “shall be persons who have rendered distinguished public service, or who have brought honour to the Republic, or who have distinguished themselves in the field of arts and letters, culture, the sciences, business, industry, the professions, social or community service or the labour movement; and in making any nomination, the Special Select Committee shall have regard to the need for nominated Members to reflect as wide a range of independent and non-partisan views as possible”.Nominations of the Committee11 The Committee found many of the candidates to be well qualified to be appointed as nominated Members of Parliament. However, as stipulated under section 3(1) of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, not more than nine nominated Members of Parliament can be appointed. The Committee has therefore nominated the following nine persons to the President for appointment as nominated Members of Parliament:Mr Calvin Cheng Ern Lee Mr Terry Lee Kok HuaMrs Mildred Tan-Sim Beng MeiAssoc Prof Paulin Tay StraughanMr Teo Siong SengMr Viswaroopan s/o Sadasivan Mr Laurence Wee Yoke ThongMs Audrey Wong Wai YenMs Joscelin Yeo Wei Ling Speech on the President's Address: 25 May 2009 [UPDATED: videos added, and see transcript of PM's speech here]I spoke today in the debate on the President's Address in opening this new session of Parliament. Parliament was prorogued last month, meaning the previous session of Parliament was ended and a new session would begin. It does not mean that Parliament was dissolved, and is not related to the calling of a general election. It also does not mean that my term as a NMP is over, as the duration of my term is fixed at 2.5 years (or until Parliament is dissolved), and is not affected by the prorogation.The video and the text of my speech are below. I had to scramble this morning after reading the reports of the Senior Minister's remarks on changes to the political system, basically re-writing a big chunk of my speech. But I think it was good, because his comments provided a reference point for what I wanted to say.Motion of thanks on President's Address: 25 May 2009Part 1Part 21. Mr Speaker Sir, thank you for allowing me to join the debate. I support the motion to thank the President for his Address.Economic situation2. It has been about four months since the Budget debate. Since then, the economic picture has gone from a despairing consensus view of doom and gloom for the world's economies, to the ongoing mixed signals of “green shoots” of growth struggling to overcome “brown weeds” of contraction. It seems that there may now be some room for cautious optimism . While the economy may still take a turn for the worse, nevertheless things do not seem to have gotten as dire as some had feared. And that is something we all need to give some thanks for.3. Now that there is greater clarity on the economic situation, people have started looking to a potential upturn. The Finance Minister had, in his Budget speech in January, already mentioned the need to position Singapore to take advantage of the inevitable recovery. That was wise, and demonstrated much foresight.4. Nevertheless, the global environment has changed. Overseas regulatory changes pose challenges to the continued success of Singapore's economic model. For instance, the US is currently considering tax changes that could eliminate the advantages of our tax regime for US MNCs, directly threatening our model of economic growth which is heavily reliant on attracting MNCs to invest and set up shop here. Similarly, recent international pressure on jurisdictions like Singapore to subscribe to OECD-prescribed standards of banking secrecy could adversely impact the private wealth management industry here. I hope that the Government will clarify its position on these issues, and its proposed responses if any.5. At the same time, Singapore continues to struggle to produce homegrown world-beating private enterprises with global reach and global profiles. The other so-called Asian tigers have all succeeded in doing so – but we can still only point to the same few examples like Singapore Airlines, most or all of which remain Temasek-linked companies. This is a striking symbol of our ongoing struggle to develop indigenous entrepreneurs. We need to fundamentally re-engineer our economy to solve this problem, and I look forward to more radical and innovative proposals from the Government on this, embodying the “fresh rethinking and creative answers” mentioned by the President.Principles governing political system, and changes to the system6. Sir, the President also said, “Sustaining economic growth will always be a high priority.” It is heartening to hear the President acknowledging, even implicitly, that economic growth is not the only priority and it is not the highest priority. One important non-economic priority highlighted by the President was the evolution of our political system. As he said, “Singapore politics must evolve over time, as the world and our society change. It must respond to new circumstances and goals, and continue to deliver good government to Singapore.”7. The Senior Minister has set out three fundamental principles for these changes: firstly, they must be fair to all contesting parties and not be biased in favour of any party; secondly, they must result in a strong and effective Government, and not a weak coalition Government; and thirdly, they must facilitate representation for diverse views in Parliament, including Opposition views.8. Sir, I have three comments on these principles laid down by the Senior Minister. Firstly, it seems to me that these three principles implicitly accept that fairness in the electoral system is critical for its legitimacy, and also that it is in the interest of Singapore to have a diversity of views in Parliament, including Opposition views. I applaud the Senior Minister, and the Government, for taking this stance. The rules must be fair, and must be seen by Singaporeans as being fair, for the electoral system to have the necessary legitimacy and for the elected Government of the day to have the moral authority to rule.9. My second comment is that any principles that we seek to apply to the electoral system must be limited to principles on the ground rules and the processes and procedures for elections. These principles should not prescribe outcomes in Parliamentary representation, which should be determined through the ballot box.10. Taking the second principle, about the system resulting in a strong and effective Government, I would agree with it to the extent that it argues against pure proportional representation. But we need to understand, and to accept, that even in a first-past-the-post system, it is possible to have an outcome where no single party wins an absolute majority, thereby necessitating a coalition government.11. We should also remain open to the possibility of a hybrid system, where the majority of seats are determined by a first-past-the-post system, but with a limited number of seats allocated by way of proportional representation. Such a system would be consonant with the Senior Minister's third principle, of facilitating diverse views in Parliament, and would do so in a manner based on voting patterns, which makes it more consistent with democratic principles than a scheme like the Nominated MP scheme.12. My third and final comment, Sir, is that these principles should be applicable to the system as a whole, and not just to the changes that will be unveiled this week. These are important principles that go to the fundamentals of our system, and hence should permeate the entire system. Fair and just changes tacked onto a system viewed as lacking in legitiamcy, would not save the system itself.Political apathy and disengagement13. But before we go into the changes themselves, we should first examine why we are seeking to change the political system. The President has explained that it needs to evolve, to respond to changes in circumstances and goals. I think globalization may have made our longstanding problem of political apathy and disengagement amongst Singaporeans so critical, that we now have no choice but to squarely address them.14. Why is it a problem, that Singaporeans are apathetic about and disengaged from the political process? To begin with, Singapore is, and must be, fundamentally for Singaporeans. That being so, Singaporeans have to be responsible for shaping the Singapore story. We cannot leave it to anyone else to do so. And to shape the story, Singaporeans need to participate in politics.15. We can import workers and professionals: construction workers, domestic workers, nurses, IT professionals, engineers, bankers, even CEOs. But we cannot import our politicians and our leaders. We are an immigrant nation, but we are also a sovereign nation. We can take advice from foreign advisers and consultants, but only we ourselves are capable of truly understanding the unique challenges facing our country and making the right decisions for Singapore. The destiny of Singapore has to lie in the hands of Singaporeans, and of Singaporeans only. There are only 4 million odd Singaporeans, and even one Singaporean opting out or being excluded from this collective process of decision-making called politics is one too many.16. Today’s globalised world has made it easier for Singaporeans to pack up and leave this country. People leave for a combination of reasons, and economic opportunities are certainly a key consideration. But some research has shown that the perceived political climate in Singapore is also a relevant factor. More importantly, only Singapore can truly give Singaporeans a sense of political rootedness and full participation in the political process, and such a sense of political stakeholding could go a long way towards keeping them here.17. Meanwhile, technology has made it easier and more tempting for Singaporeans, especially the younger ones, to plug in and tune out. We have to engage these Singaporeans and help them understand the importance of staying anchored in the offline world, so that they can have a say in moulding the Singapore that they want to live in, one that provides them with the freedom, stability and security needed for their continued immersion in online social networks, computer games and Internet video, if they so choose.Changes to the GRC system18. So what can we do? What changes should we look at?19. I think there are many things that can be done, and there is no single magic bullet. But in this speech, I will touch only on the most fundamental act in a democracy: the vote.20. The act of voting represents the core of democracy and political participation. Yet, a large number of Singaporeans do not get to vote at each election, thanks to the prevalence of walkovers. Many Singaporeans have told me about their dismay at never having voted in their lives. While there may be other reasons for walkovers being so common, the size and number of Group Representation Constituencies is obviously a key reason. We cannot deny that the incidence of walkovers has been accompanied by the proliferation of five- and six-member GRCs.21. For many Singaporeans, past changes in electoral boundaries, often pertaining to electoral wards that have just witnessed a close contest in the preceding elections, have also undermined the sacred act of voting. The oddity of Braddell Heights being part of Marine Parade GRC is merely the most striking example of such changes. I must point out that the changes to electoral boundaries leading up to the 2006 elections were not so egregious, and for that I thank and commend this Government. I hope that there will again not be any drastic changes when it comes to the next general elections, whenever they may be called.22. Even if we accept that GRCs are necessary to ensure minority representation in Parliament, which is consistent with the Senior Minister’s third principle about diverse representation, there is nevertheless room for reducing the size of GRCs. I believe that there is also room to introduce more Single Member Constituencies, above the Constitutional minimum of 9 SMC wards. These moves, together with clear commitments to refrain from the constant re-drawing of electoral boundaries and to openly publish the reasons and justifications for any such re-drawing, will all go a long way towards restoring Singaporeans' respect for the political process in Singapore, and hence increasing their desire to participate in and engage with the political process. The act of voting embodies participation in democracy, and seeing and experiencing the potential for impact imbued in their vote will naturally lead to renewed political consciousness and empowerment amongst citizens.23. The process of awakening Singaporeans' political consciousness and getting them to become more politically engaged is a long-term undertaking, and there are many things that can and need to be done. But given the central role played by voting in a democracy, that has to be the starting place if we truly want Singaporean politics to evolve and Singaporeans to participate. The sheer symbolism of a reduction in the size of GRCs and the introduction of more SMCs will go a long way towards convincing Singaporeans that the PAP is serious about political change, even if it may potentially put its absolute dominance of this House at risk.24. Sir, the next elections have to be called by 2011. Even as we work on overcoming the economic difficulties facing us, we cannot run away from the immutable reality of the electoral timetable, and we should not close our eyes to the long-term challenges facing Singapore as a society, a polity and a nation. There is no better time to start facing up to them than with the next elections, and I urge the Government to make the right choice for Singaporeans, even if it may be at a potential cost to the ruling party. Only then, can we truly fulfill the Singapore Promise, and create our Home, our Future and our Singapore.25. Sir, with that, I support the motion. The line has been crossed The attacks have continued since my last posting on this blog. In particular, the latest attacks have alleged and/or insinuated that (a) I asked for and am receiving foreign funding from a Swedish politician, who allegedly funds the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) as well, and (b) I am involved or associated with the SDP and may be their representative or “mole” in Parliament.Both of these allegations are untrue and false. They are vile, vicious and malicious attacks on me, and nothing short of character assassination. I consider them extremely defamatory and criminal in nature.I did not at any time ask for, and have not at any time been offered or accepted, any sort of funding from any local or foreign entity, including the Swedish politician named in the latest attack. The only sources of income (or funding) that I have, are my employer and the Government of Singapore (in the form of my monthly NMP allowance). Furthermore, I am not involved or affiliated or associated, whether directly, indirectly or in any other way, with the SDP, and am certainly not their representative or “mole” in Parliament.While I have not previously taken any action in response to the attacks to me on the Internet, I feel that this latest attack crosses the line and goes beyond any attacks that I am willing to countenance as being fair game for a public figure. I do not think that it is appropriate or acceptable for any MP, including an NMP, to accept any funding, whether local or foreign.Accordingly, I made a police report on this matter tonight. I have also requested those forums that I am aware are currently hosting these falsehoods, to take them down.In the interests of full transparency, I did meet with certain Swedish gentlemen recently. Details of those meetings are set out in my statement to the police. I met them at their request, just as I have met other foreigners from time to time, including staff from the various High Commissions and embassies in Singapore (such as from Australia, the US, the UK and other EU countries) and visiting foreigners, such as academics doing research on aspects of Singapore. At these meetings, we discuss matters related Singapore, in particular current affairs and the political situation in Singapore. From my perspective, these meetings are to help the foreigners obtain a better understanding of Singapore. I do not think that there was anything wrong with those meetings, and I have nothing to hide.While I continue to believe that it is, on the whole, beneficial for Singaporeans to speak up for what they believe in, and I certainly hope that this wish and desire will continue and extend beyond the current discussions around the NMP re-nomination process and homosexuality, I also do believe -- and have always believed -- that rights and freedoms have limits.I have to date refrained from taking any legal action in response to the lies and falsehoods that have been levelled at me. But this latest attack goes beyond anything that a reasonable person could possibly perceive as being a valid or legitimate exercise of the right to free speech, and I certainly will not tolerate the latest rounds of character assassination from cowards hiding behind the perceived anonymity of the Internet. TODAY article tomorrow (well, Friday) There will be an article in tomorrow's (Friday's) TODAY. This article will be about what is essentially a complaint to the Attorney-General's Chambers, the Law Society, the Singapore Academy of Law, and the Singapore Corporate Counsel Association, insinuating that my actions in relation to the AWARE EGM had breached the Legal Profession Act.I gave some comments to TODAY, and I only want to reproduce the following in point form:I hope that this complaint is not part of the ongoing organised campaign targeting me.I am confident that my actions did not breach the relevant provision of the LPA. My conscience is clear and I sincerely believe the law is on my side.I am currently considering whether to write to these 4 groups, to clarify my position.It's been a long day and it's late. So I'm going to sleep on this tonight, before deciding what/whether I will do anything else. Much as I want to move on with life, it seems that some folks simply cannot put what happened with AWARE behind them. Observations of a lapsed citizen Someone forwarded this to me, and I thought it was well-written and well-thought-through. The writer describes herself as a "lapsed citizen" -- not that she had let her citizenship lapse, but that she has ceased to be active in civil society. She was quite active in the late 90s and early 00s, but I had not heard from her for many years, until she sent me these observations last week.Also, unless another significant event takes place that I want to write about, this will be my last post on what happened with AWARE.-------------------------------------------------------------------There are many lessons to draw from the AWARE episode. While areas like steeplejacking or religious versus secular space in NGO are pertinent but I see also other more interesting aspects from my perspective of a "lapsed citizen"'. 2 worlds of Singaporeans collided at the Aware EGM. Not religious versus secular but 2 types of citizenry and their differences were so glaring it was blinding. Legitimacy and authorityJosie, TSM, and their supporters were clearly more deferential to authority and hierarchical in their approach in life. Josie and the exco first expected to be shown this deference by their official position and by their credentials (as opposed to their passion, conviction or clarity of their own views whatever those are). I have read some comments by others that this is a miscalculation on their part. I dont think its a miscalculation, They may genuinely think their credentials alone would remove any doubts on their capabilities and were caught off guard when it did not resonate with the crowd. Some of the original AWARE members have equally impressive credentials but I dont think that is how they define themselves. Josie and co are certainly not alone in this view of what gives them legitimacy. Verifiable or otherwise, it is widely accepted that Singapore society values academic excellence as a proxy for intelligence, success, wealth and therefore a higher right to rule and to lead over others. Josie and co assumed their official postions allowed them to dictate how the meeting will be conducted without taking into account the original impetus for the mtg - that more than half of the original April AWARE membership had petitioned for their removal and that was the nature of the EGM they were presiding over. The underlying arrogance resulted in a team that was clearly unprepared to manage the meeting, mount their own offense/defense or even plan for an unfavourable voting outcome. When their legitimacy was not accepted by the crowd (exasperated by their own mismanagement early in the mtg), they clearly crumbled and did not know how to regain any semblance of control of the EGM - the task of controlling the crowd ceded to the petitioners who ended up stepping into a void and took over to try to marshall and calm the crowd from the floor. TSM make a similar mistake as Josie and her team, perhaps only amplified by the higher expectations on her given her self outed role as the puppetmaster. They were very Singaporean in their view of how they thought the world should work and where is their rightful place in the world. It was just that there are apparently more than one definition of being Singaporean. Submissiveness and (overly) respectful of hierarchy While impassioned speakers come to the mic one after another and spoke their mind, Josie and the exco repeatedly asked for the "right of reply, coz its only fair" instead of just taking the mic time they had to actually reply! They were strangely waiting for the crowd to give an ok signal for them to start replying. I was amazed - it was perversely submissive behaviour. None of Josie's exco look or behaved like they were comfortable leading in any environment other than in a hierarchical manner where they can govern by official authority or within clear structural framework. They spent more mic time asking for the right of reply than actually seizing the opportunity to respond to any of the criticism leveled at them. Not hearing a reasonable defence from them is probably the anticlimax of the whole afternoon. By their behaviour, they strangely deferred to the crowd which became the more dominant force in the room. Josie and team effectively bowed to authority and waited for permission to speak, a permission that never came. They were meek as sheep in spite of their daring coup de'tat that culminated in the need for an EGM. I doubt many of the people who spoke or were in the crowd would have quietly sat there if the roles were reversed. We would have fought back instead of being cowed. They were meek like what Singaporeans were supposed to be. Again, the Singaporeans on the floor provided the contrast that not all Singaporeans are meek. Individuals and the Independent SpiritThe supporters of the petitioners were boisterious and of independent spirit. The original petitioners thru We Are Aware had sent information ahead of time requesting that supporters let the petitioners lead and raise topics at the EGM. I read that as they were asking us to refrain from going to the mic and give the mic time to the official petitioners. I recall having an instinctive resistance to the idea of anyone telling me not to speak or presuming to speak on my behalf. From the queue of people going to the mic, I was glad to see that many other people at the meeting were ignoring that suggestion. I queued for about an hour and 45 mins to get into the hall. I also had my queue broken up once and had to rejoin another part of the queue before finally making it into the room. People came singly or in groups of about 2 to 3. Anecdotally, most do not seem to know any of the original AWARE members. They were individuals. They supported the original AWARE's position on the vote but they did not necessarily deferred to their authority either. They cheered when they hear familiar names (and then strained their necks to see the faces coz they dont seem to be able to recognize the familiar AWARE faces) but were not about to sit quietly and only let the "old" AWARE speak on their behalf. They had something to say and they were making a beeline to queue for the one open mic on the floor. For those of us who had hosted and sat through countless meetings/conferences where we beseeched people to ask questions at the mic, it was remarkable how the queue of people who wanted a turn at the mic never seem to end. They queued, spoke their mind and were more eloquent than anyone could have hoped or expected. For civil society to continue to develop, our citizens need to participate in a contest of ideas and be willing to (re)imagine what is the society they want to live in and that they wish their children to inherit. The ability and willingness to step forward to express themselves as individual citizens who have a collective stake is key for ideas to surface and to persuade others to coalesce around a definition of society acceptable to all. I was reminded by sharp contrast public figures and politicians in Singapore who could not articulate their views or form arguments with clarity, passion or conviction, let alone persuade and inspire citizens. Individual citizens rising beyond the concerns of daily bread and butter issues to bother about something that does not hit the pockets directly. I was reminded of the energy you find in schools, energy and passion we are often expected to lose as we graduate to adult life and hunker down to focus on earning a living. The lapsed citizen in me always believed such Singaporeans exist in sufficient quantities because it is in the human spirit, I just never experienced an occasion of physical gathering of such scale (campus society, hall meetings and electionns not withstanding). AWARE has been handed a great gift - the gift of potential renewal if they can harness the energy of these new members. The lessons though I think are all political. In the larger political sphere, where they are not just women but Singapore citizens, what do they care about, who represents and leads these citizens and who can represent and lead them? Something that may be making the rounds This was forwarded to me by an acquaintance. I have partially anonymised the only name that appears in this email.In particular, it appears that I am now being singled out for targeting. I will only make these 3 points:As I said at the EGM, I have been an AWARE member since last year, pre-dating most or all of the Josie Lau exco. I got involved because I wanted to restore the society to the values that I supported when I joined, and I was involved in my personal capacity, as an associate member of AWARE, and not as an NMP. At no time did I mention or seek to rely on my position as an NMP.The sheer hyperbole used to describe the day's events are astonishing. "Disorder and mayhem"? I've never seen a queue forming, in the scenes of "disorder and mayhem" that I've seen (on TV). Repeating an exaggeration does not make it true.The rules at a meeting of a society are open for determination by the members in a general meeting. The exco has no right to dictate the rules for the EGM, in the face of expressed disagreement from the majority of members present. I think many members did express their disagreement with the house rules that Josie Lau and Lois Ng tried to impose, at least with respect to whether I was allowed to sit with the original members. It does seem that some people, who keep harping on this point, simply do not wish to accept the reality of the law and practice of meetings.Apart from the above points, I have no further comment on this email, and will leave readers to form their own opinions. This also means that I will not respond to any comments made (and to pre-empt any trolls, my non-response does not mean any admission or agreement to any comments that may be made).---------------------------------------------------------Dear all,I was at the AWARE EGM and it was rude shock to me that such bully and hooliganism behavior from the old guard and their supporters could be allowed in such a civilised society like Singapore. Below I attach a letter from Ms XX written to the prime minister on the incident. Many of you who were there witnessed it with your own eyes also. I heard this was the biggest gathering of lesbians and gays at the EGM of a civic society in Spore.We want to complain to the govt that an NMP Siew Kum Hong was not only openly taking sides in this internal affair of a secular organisation, but was part of the orchestrated disorder and mayhem on that day. He showed no regard for protocols until challenged by a member from the floor.We also want the govt to know that Straits Times has been blatantly stroking the religious flame and deceiving all their readers when the real issue was about homosexualism and not about a religious `takeover' of a secular association. For the record, I have since cancelled my subscription to the newspaper. Why should I pay to be told half-truths and be insidously `persuaded' to their point of views?I urge all those who were there that day to write to our PM, to MHA, REACH and ISD to tell them what you witnessed on that day. Let your voice be heard before it is taken away one day right before your eyes!PS: The PM's email address is: lee_hsien_loong@pmo.gov.sg---------------------------------------------------------Dear all,It is indeed time for concerned individuals to play their part in shaping the future of our nation.Below, I attach a letter I have sent to the PMO.Cheryl XX---------------------------------------------------------Dear Prime Minister,I am writing as a concerned Singaporean and a mother to request official scrutiny into press reporting of the AWARE saga.I'll share my first-person observations at the AWARE EGM in relation to Straits Times coverage of the event.1) My 18-year-old daughter and I went to the AWARE EGM on Saturday, 2 May 2009, to observe the proceedings of a civil organisation but the progression of events left us with much disquiet.a) We noticed a large contingent of men upon entering the meeting hall as we were directed to the 'overflow area' in Hall 403 where we sat in the front portion (we were among the last 200 to enter at 2.50pm after queuing from 1.30pm). The men formed about a quarter of the meeting, occupying seats in the back half of the 'overflow'. My daughter observed that this was a meeting for a women's association and was surprised at the substantial male turn-out. I reserved my comments.b) We were accosted by ear-deafening 'boos' and jeers as we passed the section, but realised that they were not directed at us as much as at the speaker onstage. We were quite unable to hear the opening speech being given by Ms Josie Lau, then President of AWARE, as the heckling went on unabated in tenor and base. In fact, the aggression was so vehement that my daughter was in tears from the sense of intimidation and oppression, even though the hooliganism was not directed at us.c) It could be clearly observed that a number of men in the front of the section were attired in white 'We are AWARE' t-shirts or pink tops.d) There were also more than 20 foreign men and women in their midst.e) Then as the meeting progressed, more than half of them moved to stand with and around the 'old guard' of AWARE, and at the floor speakers' area, continuing to disrupt the proceedings despite calls for order.e) What really flabbergasted us was that soon some of these associate members with no voting rights took the stand to proudly declare their homosexual status to loud applause from the 'old guard' camp as they spoke in support of the Comprehensive Sexuality Education programme. In fact, it was impossible for ordinary members like me to try to ask any questions on the floor (as I tried to queue up to do so) as the 'old guard' with half of them men effectively 'barricading' the area and monopolising the microphones in a raucous commotion.We came away from the whole event rather disillusioned by AWARE and what it professed to stand for. They may still be helping women, marginalised or needy, but they are also involved in the political agenda of some minority groups, even with covert foreign interference.2) I'm also surprised and deeply troubled that the reporting in The Straits Times has not been honest in presenting the full picture to the public, especially concerned parents following the AWARE saga. There was a concerted effort by both the press and TV coverage not to mention the significant presence of the homosexual community. If I had not been there, I would never have known the truth.a) In fact, I witnessed the main reporter responsible for blowing up the whole AWARE story (Wong Kim Hoh) hobnobbing with the homosexual fraternity at the EGM.b) Some members of the press and TV were candidly jubilant as they celebrated the passing of the 'no confidence' vote by punching their fists in the air and hugging the 'old guard' they were standing with.c) In the sweep of fervent support, the constitutional amendments were also made to allow men and foreign women full voting rights (in a local women's association that makes the CEDAW report on the state of women in Singapore). In the perspective that such an amendment was thrown out in the previous AGM, the motives may be called into question. The press made no mention of this important development.I question the cover-up in the press.In review of newspaper coverage of AWARE developments, I'm also beginning to think that press focus on the sensitive issue of religious involvement was but a calculated red herring thrown out to manipulate public sentiments.Sir, I am pleading for the authorities to look into this matter as I am becoming increasingly alarmed that minority groups with a political agenda may not have just reached its grasp into a vulnerable women's group, and through it attempt to distort our children's views on sexuality, but has actually infiltrated the press to block out news and prevent the public from accessing the truth. I actually feel frightened that the press in Singapore can attempt to shape my views as it wishes by misinformation or partial information. What I took away from 2 May A lot has been said and written about the AWARE EGM last Saturday. And by now, I'm sure everyone has seen videos of the key moments on YouTube. So I'm not going to get into the familiar details of what happened that day.Instead, I'm just going to post a few thoughts from the EGM, and also talk about some aspects that I have not seen mentioned.Affirmation of valuesFirst and foremost, I walked away from the EGM proud to be Singaporean. I saw the result as an affirmation of the values that we hold dear (openness, transparency, inclusiveness, diversity and secularism) and a rejection of those that, well, we should not (dishonesty, non-transparency, exclusiveness, intolerance, divisiveness and oppression/bullying).While I do not see the EGM as a watershed or a pivotal moment signalling any sort of significant change in Singapore politics (as at least one journalist has tried to posit to me), it does stand as a milestone marking some sort of progress towards a more active and passionate civil society. The willingness of all these people to stand up and be counted, to invest all that time and effort for a cause that they believed in, gave me hope that Singaporeans are not as passive or apathetic as we are often said to be, and that it really takes the right cause to spark us into action.Importance of passionMy second point relates to the fiery passion demonstrated by so many folks in the audience. Some have sought to portray this as a shameful lack of civility, as a disgusting show of rude bullying tactics, as a terrible indictment of the supporters of the so-called old guard (I prefer "original members"). I beg to differ.To begin with, I question whether these critics (well, those who are not supporters of the ousted Exco) were even there at all, to see for themselves what had happened. Did they see the way that the ousted Exco had started the meeting? Did they understand the context that contributed to this atmosphere of anger?It was clear from the outset that the ousted Exco was trying to create a tilted playing field. When I arrived just past 11am, and tried to take the escalator from the 3rd floor to the 4th floor, three of the ousted Exco's supporters blocked the escalator, claiming that I was not allowed to go up. I was a little taken aback, and proceeded only when a volunteer for the original members told them to let me pass because it was a public area and they had no right to block me. This came on the heels of another of their supporters, who had greeted me on the 3rd floor with a big plastic smile, and then furiously whispered "SKH! SKH!" into her radio as I passed her.Was all this necessary? Was there a need to play these sort of games?It did not get better when the meeting began. I was the lightning rod that first drew their ire. Jenica Chua had already been informed earlier that I was a legal advisor for the original members -- and yet, when a member of the audience (a VIP as designated by the Josie Lau exco, whom none of us recognised) specifically asked for me to move to the associate members' section, Josie Lau simply ordered me to move. She even directed security to escort me out of the ordinary members' section (either to the associate members' section or out of the hall, I can't remember which). My wife later told me that she was worried about the security guards forcibly manhandling me.It only got worse, when the meeting got underway. The mics on the floor were not switched on. Whenever an original member got to a mic and tried to speak, the sound person would deliberately shut down that mic. It was no accident and not faulty sound -- it was a deliberate attempt to prevent us from speaking.Those who are familiar with the law and practice of meetings will know that points of order have precedence, and whoever is speaking has to yield the floor to someone making a point of order. But with the mics switched off, it was impossible to raise a point of order properly. Even after the lawyer from Rajah & Tann said that the mics should be switched on, this was not done properly or consistently. When folks on the floor protested, the ousted Exco's first response was to threaten ejection from the hall, even though it is established law that the chairperson's right to eject members may be exercised only upon repeated, severe disorder, not as a first resort.That was how the entire meeting started. What sort of note did these heavy-handed tactics adopted by the ousted Exco strike? One of the leading legal textbooks on meetings states that the effect of a fair chairperson is often under-estimated. I would certainly say that the ousted Exco was not interested in conducting a fair meeting in accordance with the rules governing meetings, but only a meeting on their terms.Faced with this, with a hostile chairperson seeking to exercise her powers in an unfair manner, what was the floor to do? The floor's only weapon, only response, is its voice. And in this case, we used that weapon to full effect. To do otherwise, to be as meek as these critics seem to want us to be, would have played into the ousted Exco's hands.Those who criticise the behaviour of our supporters miss the point. They overlook the nature of such EGMs, which are invariably contentious affairs with emotions running high. They buy into the myth of an orderly debate, which simply does not exist when the ground rules are unfair and stacked against one side. They ignore the important role of passion in advocacy, blindly emphasising rote obedience of rules while missing the positive aspects of passionate advocacy.So no, I will not apologise for the behaviour of our supporters. Instead, I am proud of this rare display of passion in public discourse. Indeed, I only wish that we see more of such passion in future.Planning, planning, planningThis article in The New Paper says it all: these unsung heroes provided the platform for all the speakers to shine. The amazing work of folks like Alex, Serena, Ching-Wi, Jolovan and Schutz made the result possible. I salute them.Their planning was immaculate. Thanks to their immense efforts, we did not have to worry about logistics at all in the lead-up to and during the EGM. I also believe that the early arrival of our supporters paved the way for our success. We were able to occupy the seats nearest to the stage, which also turned out to be nearest to the only mic that was switched on throughout the entire EGM. This proximity to the stage and to the mic probably allowed us to neutralise Josie Lau's advantage as the chairperson.Passion vs passivenessI've already mentioned the passion exhibited by our supporters. In stark contrast, the supporters of the ousted Exco were surprisingly passive, preferring to clap furiously whenever the ousted Exco spoke (regardless of the substance of their comments) instead of taking to the mic. Few of their supporters spoke up, and of these, too many failed to make the most of their time on the mic. Some of the more bizarre speeches of the day came from their supporters.More surprisingly, so many of their supporters seem to have left early. I cannot confirm this, but it felt like they had started leaving even before the results were announced. And when the members voted to remove the ousted Exco from office because it looked like they were not coming back, there were only two objections -- presumably because their other 700 supporters had left by then.I cannot explain why, although Alex Au has speculated on this. But I did haer that their supporters arrived in buses, and did not seem to really know what was going on. So perhaps they had been bus-ed in, having been simply told to vote, without much more. If that was true, then no wonder they did not speak up.Thank youFinally, I want to thank the ladies who came to me for advice just after the AGM on 28 March. I got involved in all this because of them, and I am glad that I did. It gave me a ringside seat to everything that happened, and I would not have missed it for the world. I'm only happy to have had the chance to contribute to their success in some small way.And of course, I have to thank every woman and man who turned up to be counted, for affirming those values that Singaporeans hold so dear. Without you, nothing would have happened. With you, everything becomes possible. We won :) As many of you may know by now, I have been advising the original members of AWARE in their (successful!) battle to remove the Exco headed by Josie Lau. So the past few weeks, especially this past week, has been crazy busy.I have so many thoughts to share, but for now I only want to say that it has been a real honour and privilege to have been part of such a historic moment, and that I feel so heartened by the turnout and the way the voting went as well as public discourse in the past week as more facts came out -- it is such a strong affirmation by Singapore of the values that AWARE stands for: inclusiveness, diversity, openness and transparency. Today, I am so proud to be Singaporean.