Uber and Grab taxis and Khaw Boon Wan

Gintai wrote an article about the new ‘pah ong chia’ or private taxis in the more sophisticated form of Uber and Grab taxis and why they are providing unfair competition to the rejected PMEs now driving govt licenced and control taxis that required them to take a Taxi Vocational Licence(TVL) test. To qualify for a TVL one must be a Singaporean and to take a crash course plus security vetting for criminal records.

The ‘pah ong chia’ drivers need not require to go through all the stringent processes and could simply drive their taxis under whatever rules or checks of these operators. No need to be citizens. Of course they claimed to check their track records too.

And no one could see anything wrong with these ‘pah ong chia’ drivers. It must be the right thing to do. It started in the West, so much be good. The West are doing it, so should be no problem. And this is another form of free enterprise, deregulation, free trade and all the jest. Finally we have someone who has a little commonsense to question this silly thing.

I only have one question. How many of you would put your parents, wives and children in a car driven by a total stranger, maybe not even Singaporean, whose track record or criminal record is not questioned? Or how many of you think it safe enough even for yourself to be driven around by an unknown  element where the authority has very little knowledge or control over them?

Are we so innocent and naïve to take personal safety so carelessly? The Singapore today is not the same Singapore of the past. We are in an open space for all and sundry to be here.

PS. If the drivers of Uber and Grab are subject to the same security regiment, and Singaporeans, then the issue is different.

Personal encounter in TTSH

I am not surprised with the outbreak of Hepatitis C at SGH. Sometime back I had some sudden lost of hearing problem in my left ear and was referred by Hougang Polyclinic to seek further advice in the ENT Department of Tan Tock Seng Hospital. The ENT doctor in TTSH who attended to me happened to be a foreign talent. After some checking of my ear I was told there was nothing wrong with my ears. So the ENT doctor recommended me for an MRI of the brain to rule out any tumour growth in my brain. I told the ENT doctor in charge of my case that I have a pace maker when he told me about sending me for an MRI. But on the day scheduled when I went for my MRI the radiologist was surprised when I told him that I ave a pace maker, because he could not find any note or statement regarding my pace maker. It is vitally important that a pace maker specialist must be arranged to stand by to monitor my pace maker before my MRI. Clearly the ENT doctor who recommended me for MRI negligently forgot to state in the form to the radiologist that I have a pace maker and therefore the radiologist could not conduct an MRI for me because it wasn't right to do so without the pace maker specialist standing by. I was later referred back to the same ENT doctor who apologised to me but then stated after all he is no longer sending me for MRI because it incurred risk. I thanked him but in my heart I really don't know what hubris he was talking or was he thinking of something else. Well, the ENT was a foreign talent. I nearly die in his hand.

Last month I suffered great giddiness or vertigo and was recommended by my outside GP to TTSH Emergency Admission . Can you imagine I was attended by another doctor of foreign origin . I spent the whole afternoon and night waiting for treatment. By the time I had to collect my medicine it was about 9.00pm. I was charged a total of slightly over hundred dollars. When I told the cashier that I am under the Pioneer Status and would like to pay through my Medisave. I was shocked to hear form her that in the emergency section pioneer status and medisave do not apply and so I had to pay either in cash or via Visa Credit Card. Subsequently I found out from a prominent Pharmacy that the anti-giddiness tablets I was prescribed cost only very much less than
a dollar . I am still in shock.

Suffering in Silence

This is a post from Ely

The return of the Sultans as a force of stability

Two days before the Conference of Rulers, the nine rulers of Malaysia issued a statement calling the govt to quickly conclude the investigations into the 1MDB affair. For almost two decades, the role of the Sultans was in eclipsed, their wings clipped by the notorious Mahathir whose political fortune was on the rise. Mahathir then was the undisputed and most powerful PM Malaysia ever had. He was the one to call the shot and had little respect for the rulers of Malaysia whose track records gave Mahathir a chance to clamp down on their powers.

In those days, Mahathir and UMNO were riding on a wave of Malay supremacy and popularity and stood on high moral grounds relative to the house of the rulers. Mahathir was able to chastise the rulers and in 1993 amended the Constitution to remove the rulers’ legal immunity. Mahathir was then at the peak of his power and no rulers could stand up to him.

Two decades today, the fate of Malay politicians and UMNO have changed with Mahathir out of the PM’s seat. The indiscretion and wayward ways of UMNO and its politicians have weakened their standing among the rakyat and the charges of corruption are so prevalent that the house of the royalties is looking like angels.

The 1MDB affair is looking so ridiculous that no matter what Najib and his peers tried to do, the matter just got worse. There is hardly any chance of Najib getting out of this fracas clean. Mahathir tried his best but not enough as he is no longer at his best. A stalemate kind of situation has been reached whereby Najib would still be the PM and no one could do anything about it.

This scenario is like two wounded lions fighting desperately to stay alive and here comes the hunter waiting for the kill. The royalties have kept themselves pretty clean for the last two decades and confidence in them have grown among the rakyat. And with the politicians falling all over among themselves, everyone as bad as the other, the royalties are now standing on high moral grounds to tell the politicians to shape up or get out.

The statement made by the house of rulers is quite unprecedented and a sign of the growing confidence and power of the royalties. They are back, to regain their rightful place in Malaysia politics. The politicians no longer can stand on solid ground to dispel the royalties for any wrongdoings. They are all up to their necks in deep water and are struggling to stay alive.

It is an opportune moment for the house of rulers to tell him who is boss and should be respected. The Constitution Amendments withdrawing the legal immunity of the rulers still stands. Such immunity shall be applied equally and the politicians shall not enjoy any immunity for any criminal acts. There shall be no legal immunity for the politicians.

The 1MDB must be settled quickly. The Red Shirts are not going to give up until they create a riot to create a diversion from 1MDB. And there is now another excuse to do in Malacca.  Some Malay immigration officers were assaulted by gangsters in downtown Malacca while conducting a raid in the area. Mohd Ali Baharom, a Red Shirt leader, is taking this opportunity to raise fear in downtown Malacca. He warned that 10,000 Red Shirts will descend upon downtown Malacca and it ‘will not be safe’. The police are going to question him. Just hope the police will do the same thing like in KL to prevent another racial riot.

Would the Malay rulers put pressure on the Red Shirts not to politicize the issue and turn the country upside down? The police should round up the gangsters in the assault. It is a police case, not a case for political rioting.

Make this the last haze with more haste

Many years back the Indonesians said they needed a satellite to help them spot the hot spots to fight haze. Of course no one was willing to buy them a satellite even if they could afford it. It was nonsensical. In the last few days the Indonesians have been wavering from wanting our help to send our aircraft to help them fight the haze to not necessary, too little to make a difference.

Yesterday they said they are willing to accept our offer of help or anyone willing to help. And what they need are bigger planes that can carry more water to douse the fire. Sounds logical, big fire needs big planes and more water.

Have they forgotten what Siti Nurbaya Bakar said, that they should tackle the haze problem from the source and prevention. Prevent the fire from starting and no one needs to go around lugging pots of water to douse the fire. Is this too difficult to understand? Oops, they may request to install CCTVs in every corner of the jungle to track down fire starters. Now how many million CCTVs would be needed on paper?

Can anyone teach them on a more efficient, effective and less costly way to prevent the fire from starting?

The momentum to take actions against fire starters has taken a first baby step. The ban and boycott of products and related products from such companies must remain in place until the next haze season and only be lifted when haze is not reappearing.  Please do not lift it next month when the sky is clear, no haze already, so no more problems. And this campaign must be expanded not only to cover more companies. Taking just APP alone is definitely not enough, it must also extend to other affected countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei and perhaps the Philippines. The ban can only be effective if there is a concerted effort to stop this menace and not just talk, talk and talk.

The haze can be stopped if serious enforcement measures are taken to prevent the fire from being lighted or to be killed at the early stages of the fire. After this haze season, all the fires will be out, and no haze, when the wet season arrives. The situation should be kept that way and close monitoring, early warning and detection system must be in place to keep a look out for fire starters in the next season.

The haze can be stopped next year, not another 3 years if there is a political will to stop it. The different countries can assist the Indonesian govt in law enforcement with equipment and financial resources to beef up the forest rangers and law enforcement officers. The satellites are there and it is only a matter of getting a dedicated team or ministry to work on it. It is all about prevention, not fighting fires.

Let there be no outbreak of fire or putting them out at earliest possible. And make the firestarters pay. Keep the ban in place on all the culprits, not just one company, until next year. The haze is not caused by just one company.

The dying of a human specie called Singaporean

The true blue Singaporeans are going to disappear from this island in a matter of time. And no, it is not that they are being ousted out by the foreigners. And it is not because they are not working hard enough, not trying hard enough. They are trying very hard to be the best, investing a lot on the young with the ‘best’ education they could buy. They forgot that education is the training of the mind, to acquire knowledge and how to use the brain to apply the knowledge acquired, or at least to think. They believed that parroting or gaming the system is good education. Get a good score, anyhow, by whatever means, is the goal of education. Mugging, go through all the standard questions, know the exam questions and know the answers, buy the results, get the tuition teachers to provide model answers and viola, straight As!

The gaming to get high rankings for tertiary institutions falls into the same pattern. University education is not the teaching and training of the minds of the undergrads, but about getting high rankings for the universities, bring in all the foreigners if necessary, the lecturers and students can all be foreigners, never mind. The goal is the high rankings.

Now where was I? Oh the extinction of the Singaporean specie, the true blue ones. Today’s first page news in the Newpaper reported how angry parents were when their children could not answer a PSLE question. What is the problem? The maths question too difficult? Not like that. The question is a commonsensical question, but not found in any model answers. The question is not taught in class or by the tuition teachers or the parents themselves. What does it mean? It simply means that the children would not know anything they is not taught. Yes, the chicken comes from the supermarket, got no feathers.

Now what is this outrageous question? Guess the weight of 6 one dollar coins. And this is multiple choice question with 3 answers provided to make a good guess, 60gm, 600gm and 6kg, which is the right answer or nearest to the right answer? The students drew a blank. The parents were furious, went mad and in a way challenged the MOE for setting a question that could not be found in any past exam questions. This question is as good as asking the students the colour of the sun with answers like black, blue and orange as possible answers. And bet you, the children will cry to their mama and papa, never heard of such question, how to answer? They would not try to figure it out. They are not taught to figure things out when in a fix and facing a new situation. Their minds will go swirling and swirling to find an answer stored in the memory. Can’t find it there means no answer, cannot answer, dunno how to answer.

Is this how we train our young, to memorise answers, memorise scripts? Anything not taught they would not know how to react? Life is about the unknowns and the surprises and the many things not in the text books.

At the way our children are taught to ace examinations by gaming, they would soon end up as biological robots, waiting for input in order to produce outputs. No input means no output. How are they going to survive in the real world? Soon they may not know how to eat, what to eat other than the hamburgers bought from MacDonald by papa and mama. Did MOE forget to teach them how to make babies? Maybe that is the reason why fertility rate is so low.

How to compete with the survivors from the rough and tough world that have to learn to live with whatever problems in their way, to overcome them by any means?

What do you think?

PS. The older generations used to bring a dice to the examination hall and if they could not think of an answer, at least they would throw the dice and hoped for lady luck. They would still do something to make the best out of a bad situation. The last thing they would do is go crying to papa and mama. They grew up earlier, learning to survive in the uncertain world.