Taking AIM into the wilderness

The AIM saga is not going to go away. First impression, if it counts, is that it is in muddy waters. There are so many things that the general public do not think were right and the stench is getting foul as the days go by.

On the PAP side, several efforts were made by Teo Ho Pin, Chandra Das and a minister in Grace Fu to explain that everything is in order. Unfortunately the explanations only helped to muddy the water even more and people listening to the explanations are getting exasperated. It is something that cannot be explained away. It is like the proverbial elephant that is too big to be covered up.

Three presidential candidates in the last Presidential Election have all chipped in to air their dissatisfaction over the whole saga. This can only mean that they were in agreement that something is not right. The only presidential candidate that became the President has yet to say anything. Perhaps he disagrees with the other three and did not see anything wrong with the AIM. Until the President speaks, no one would know what he is thinking and his position on this matter. Maybe it is a matter that should not involve the President.

What would be the likely outcome of this episode? So far the official explanation is not cutting any ice. Could more explanations help, or it is already a failed cause? If this is a failed cause, how would it affect the PAP’s standing and its performance in the next GE?

Or would the PAP bite the bullet, conduct an inquiry and sacrifice a few heads to redeem itself? I wrote this yesterday and this morning read the papers that Hsien Loong has called for an inquiry. After the last GE a few ministerial heads rolled. Would this episode lead to similar results?

As I said in my first posting on this subject, Teo Ho Pin’s explanation will have great consequences to the eventual outcome of this episode. What the public have been told so far is that public money was spent to develop a management programme and this is sold to AIM which is a PAP organisation. And AIM is making money by charging a fee to the Town Councils, and the people are paying for it. Is this the right perception?

Public institution or political organization

The AIM saga has led many to question the nature of Town Councils. Are TCs public institutions or are they political organizations? This also brings to question whether the People’s Association is a public institution or a political organization. According to Tan Cheng Bock, TCs are public institutions. Baey Yam Keng said otherwise, that they are political organizations and the AIM saga has been over politicized. Should not that be the case since they are political organizations?

What are the differences between a political organization and a public institution? There are many and very obvious differences without having to split hairs. Academics may have a long list of definitions or what is and what is not. I would simply lay out a few cogent points of what is a public institution and what is not.

A public institution is often formed to serve the interests of the public in general, not a particular group or political party. It draws its funds from the public or from the govt. It is has no links to any political party. These should be brief and easy to understand. Political organizations are simply organizations of political parties to serve party interests.

An organization that is paid by the public or by public funds from the govt should be a public institution. Political organizations that serve the interests of political parties must not be paid by public fund or the govt. There is a big grey area that need not be grey at all, that is the govt. The govt is made up of political parties, singular or a coalition. They are political parties first and the govt second. It could be the other way round. The govt is to serve the general public of all political colours. But this is easier said than done. Most govt will look at party interests first and public interests second for self preservation and selfish interests. Ideally, political parties should shed their politics when elected to form the govt and serve the public at large as one people of one country. I said ideally, and I am asking too much. Even immortals will be biased to favour party interests than public interests.

The govt aside, should TCs be public institutions or political organizations? Likewise, is the PA a public institution or political organization? Who is footing the bill? Who pays their salaries and activities? The govt using public fund or the political party using party fund?

Recognition and verification of foreign talent qualifications

Read recently that some organizations are starting to verify the degrees of foreign talents here. Some have been doing it for quite some times. The problems of forged or fake foreign degrees is not so simply verified by a check with the institutions issuing the degrees. Knowing the ingenuity and laxity of third world countries, many such verifications are just a waste of time. You would need a more robust and reliable verification procedure agreed upon by both countries and the institutions of higher learnings. This has to be seriously done as the damage and stupidity of hiring fakes and idiots to be bosses of our world class university graduates is so ridiculous and it is just a laughing stock.

The other related problem with recognition of foreign degrees is the quality or validity of such degrees. Are the institution issuing the degrees respectable and the teachings of good quality. A good yardstick would be our local universities. Are they equivalent or are they just crabby? Can imagine we put so much emphasis on the quality of our institutions of higher learning and the tedious and strenuous learning processes our students have to go through only to be rubbished by rubbish from rubbish universities.

Did the Govt sign agreements with foreign govts to accept their degrees of all colours and stripes to work here and to kick the butts of our very own students from our best universities? Can this really be the case? Our top grade students ended up working for pariah graduates from pariah institutions, or fakes? Do we have to live with such sick jokes? And this is not a joke when our children are adversely affected.

The other shitty about such agreements is that our graduates would not want to apply for shitty jobs in shitty countries. So it is a non issue. It is shitty countries that want all their shitty graduates to be accepted here and be recognized as the equals if not better than out graduates. How silly?

Jason Chee, nothing will be enough for you

Eng Hen visited Jason Chee in the high dependency ward in Changi General Hospital. Jason, a naval Military Expert, lost both his limbs, a hand and left with a right arm with only two fingers when he was caught in a winch while on duty. He has lost practically everything while serving the Navy.

This is the price our young people paid for serving the nation, losing limbs and lives. Eng Hen has promised that Mindef will provide long term support for Jason. A little consolation knowing how expensive medicare is here. But nothing can be enough for Jason. He is going to struggle through life in all physical aspects and the emotions and depression that are going to accompany him for the rest of his life.

Not only will he bear the pain, his parents and relations will have to bear with him. The price of being a citizen and serving the nation in uniform can be very heavy. There is nothing anyone can do to give Jason back his normal life. Nothing.

Vincent Wijeysingha and Alex Au - Be sued or apologise

Within one day we witnessed two bloggers, one an aspiring politician and another a social activist, being issued with legal letters threatening to sue them if they did not remove what they posted and apologise to the purportly victims of their articles. Both admitted that they have posted things that are defamatory in nature. Both are also tertiary educated and are not the kopitiam gossipers that would shoot first and think later. They might know what they have posted were defamatory, or they did not and only knew about its defamatory nature after being threatened with a law suit.

What is material is that they got what they wanted to say across, in the social media and had their messages read and understood. The points were made, rightly or wrongly, truth or untruth does not matter any more.

On the part of their target victims, the latter had the options not to react, to do nothing or to threaten to sue and demand an apology. Not doing anything would be welcomed by those who believe in ‘freedom of speech’. It would also allow certain statements being made against them and by nothing responding, some may believe they are truths. By reacting, like suing, some may see it as a defense of their dignity and integrity. Some may see it as being overly sensitive and bullying. This could look bad in a way.

For those who wrote defamatory statements, by admitting so, does it mean that the statements are untrue and that they were making false accusations? When people have done wrong and when exposed, the whistle blower is just telling the truth and cannot be threatened or sued for defamation. The customers of the underaged prostitute, or those who admitted to have indiscretions, cannot sue anyone for saying these facts. In this sense, people who withdrew their defamatory statements were saying that what they said were untrue. Tiok boh?

So, for all that Vincent Wijeysingha and Alex Au had written, now that they had withdrawn the articles and apologised, it was all a hoax, no element of truth in them. Like the judge in the courts will now tell the jury to ignore whatever that were spoken as they were not relevant to the case. A better case would be to sue the whistle blower even if it is true as long as the whistle blower did not have the money to fight the lawsuit. That is the best kind of justice that money can buy.

What do you think?