4/08/2015
Why George Gascon, photographer of LKY, going home?
It was reported that the Gascon, personal photographer of LKY from the ST, had returned to the Philippines to be a farmer despite LKY persuading him to stay on as a citizen. Why would a person reject the good offer from LKY to stay in this first world city?
Let’s do the number game and see why this guy preferred to go back and be a farmer, owning his own farm and probably a big land and house to his name. If he stayed, he would likely be retired by 60. Assuming both he and his wife were professionals, they would likely to own a 4 or 5 rm HDB flats and each would still have about $100k to $200k in their CPF accounts after 20 years here. On retirement, both would receive maybe $1000 each monthly to live forever and the flat fully paid. They would survive but no frills, no cars.
By choosing to return to the Philippines, they would cash out everything. The flat could fetch between $400k to $600k. And the CPF would have to return them maybe $300k in total. Their net cash would be roughly S$1m or 32.5 million pesos. A flat in the Philippines costs about 1/10 the price in Singapore. He could get a very big house in the rural area for $100k and maybe a big farm for another $100k. He could buy a decent car for $30k. And he would be left with $650k cash or est 20m pesos in his bank savings, not stuck in a CPF kind of savings that he cannot touch.
With the cost of living that is roughly 1/10 of Singapore’s, he would be a very rich man! And he could send his children to the best schools. And if they need a good job, send them to Singapore to go through the same cycle and to return to the Philippines later as rich men one more time.
Why would he want to retire in Singapore with no cash except those stuck in the CPF, untouchable except for the monthly stipends and waiting to pay a medical bill that he cannot afford to, no cars and only a HDB flat? He is now a very rich farmer and very comfortable with his savings.
Gascon is definitely no daft Sinkie.
PS. I am assuming that he had a flat to sell with big profits. Many Pinoys and those from neigbouring countries would be doing the same when they retired. Sell everything and go home very rich.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
19 comments:
Your so descriptive article this
morning is very interesting.
Wasted, you are not with memecorp
as a script writer or even film director.
Anyway, very good very good very
interesting!
Cheers.
To be good enough to write for main media you must have a special skill to write only the right stuff. I tend to write all teh wrong stuff that main stream readers did not want to read.
So not marketable.
What Gascon can do, most Sinkies can copy and live like him in many OTHER COUNTRIES.
There is nothing like home. Unfortunately this home for Sinkies is getting so expensive that many will be driven out or suffered like the disappearing middle class in some US cities.
I'm one of many Sinkies who live overseas. Once in a while I will miss Singapore which I still consider my home but after 2 days there I will always want to chabut back to my home here. Happens 2, 3 times a year. Singapore is looking less and less of what it used to be. I cannot tahan living in an HDB flat and even the small bungalows sitting in gardens in the private estates have been replaced by 3 to 4 story houses that practically cover all the land. Quite hideous and it makes the place so hot. Even the shady trees lining the streets are gone.
Another statue of lky being erected in pinoyland? Will he name his kid lky? The plot thickens.. Another ft that will do much better than his local counterparts. Btw..why did lky choose a foreign photographer..singkies got no photographer meh??
LKY went home.
So George Gascon also go home lah.
Now if only the rest of the PAPigs wpuld also follow Gascon's example.
I am an Emglishman.
I will call my son Stamford Raffles Lee Kuan Yew.
As for my dog's name.
Any suggestions?
Calvin?
Calling my dog Calvin Cheng is very insulting to my dog.
Let's all maintain a respectful tone here in rb's blog.
RB, If I were him, I will go bakk also. There is no use having your money locked up either by CPF or HDB. One cannot live on air you know?
Cannot live on air.
But according to PAP, we can live on LKY's Legacy.
When you are starving, take a bite of the Hard Truths.
Very good nutrition to keep Singaporeans going.
Let's send George Gascon 500 copies of LKY's Hard Truths and help feed 500 starving Filipno families in the Philippines.
Reminds me of a minister who went on a tour of Woodbridge Hospital.
He saw this patient with a fishing rod sitting beside a dry drain inside the hospital. Knowing that Woodbridge patients are mentally challenged, he tried to be nice and wanted to play along without hurting their pride.
So he greeted the patient and said, 'Good weather for fishing ya.'
The patient looked him over with a curious look and then said, 'Are you crazy? Where got fish here?'
Would you think Gascon, now a multi millionaire in pesos would want to eat the book?
An article in TRS today said that a coffeeshop in Choa Chu Kang charged him 7% GST in addition to the price of his plate of Chicken Rice.
Can charge GST meh?
Must be doing BIG business!
Good for IRAS!
发! 发! 发!
Even his own ah ma who raised his children don't want to live under the so called first world rule. She preferred to go home to China too. What does that tell you?
"What does that tell you?"
April 08, 2015 2:25 pm
It tells us that that she is smarter than 60% of Sinkies who keep voting PAP.
She knows whether LKY is on her side or not.
"What does that tell you?"
It tells you that those who have insider information will not become Singaporeans and take the money out as soon as they leave.
George Gascon treating Singapore as a hotel?
But never mind lah. If it is a good hotel, there will always be new occupants and fully booked all the time too.
By the words typed out here, I doubt anyone including the author of the piece know George. I would state more than half of what is being said can be discarded, and I'm being kind in saying that. Nevermind, everyone can say what they like; the real truth or the truth in their minds.
I had the good fortune of meeting the humble soft-spoken man and had visited him two years ago at his remote farm in Tagatay province. Spent over half a day milking his mind and had a delicious home-cooked lunch by his "visiting" wife, a very nice and cultured lady.
"Visiting" because George is fulltime at his farm (as a hobby), and his wife works in Manila in an art gallery. She takes the long 3-hour multi-stage journey to visit him every weekend and bring back fresh farm produce to her colleagues and neighbours on Monday mornings. The loving couple has a son, a daughter and two grandsons.
George is still very fond of Singapore and he named his every nook and corner after the city state. Examples are: Orchard Road for the main path leading out of his home to the football field sized farm proper, Fort Canning on the little rise in the middle, and the outhouse right at a remote corner is jokingly called the Times House or sh*thouse. He also named each and every animal on the property after his former ST colleagues. One of the ST photographers anxiously asked me on my return whether she (a chicken) is still alive or been slaughtered for food :-) I had no heart to tell the truth, so I skirted the subject.
His younger ST colleagues and the even younger ones who had never met him fondly referred to him as Ah Kong or Grandfather, and they appreciate his guidance and legacy so much that they pooled their money to bring him back for the SG50 celebrations.
George served Singapore faithfully for a full ten years from 1992 to 2002. On his return to the Philippines fifteen years ago, he was inundated with very enticing offers from the major local papers but rejected them all because he wanted to savor his retirement at the pinnacle of his long journalistic career - in being a great man’s "personal" photographer - which began at age 17...
Post a Comment