The Philippines is not the Sick Man of Asia

There have been many misguided comments that the Philippines is the new Sick Man of Asia. This is not true. The only semblance of a Sick Man is its economy, that is not doing as well as the Asean states. Other than this, the Philippines is every inch a proud sovereign state. The Pinoys are a proud people and had recently driven the colonial master, the USA, out of their country. They have reclaimed full independence of their national sovereignty, with no foreign bases and soldiers in their country. They are even standing up to fight China and competing to claim islands in the South China Sea as theirs. They even want to claim or take over Singapore as their new colony. They may not be rich, but the Philippines is anything but a Sick Man of Asia.

Reflect what qualified China of the 19^th Century as the Sick Man of Asia, the conditions of the country and people. China was not only economically weak, the country was cut up by foreigners with foreign concessions where foreigners lived like they owned the country, in their own enclaves in Shanghai. The foreigners have more rights in China than the locals. When they ended up in court, the court would rule in favour of them. And the corrupt elites were sleeping with the foreigners, allowing more foreigners into the country, taking over businesses and anything that had economic values, even messing around with the govt. The foreigners were having all the good jobs and top jobs in the country.

What about the locals? The local Chinese were kicked aside, no jobs and begging the foreigners for jobs. The foreigners were in control of everything. the govt, the economy and jobs and wining, dining and partying everyday. The natives lost all pride as citizens of the country. Got bashed by the foreigners, kicked around by the foreigners, insulted and abused by the foreigners, as good as no talents. And the natives could not do anything and the govt could not do anything. The elites would not dare offend the powerful foreigners. The natives lost all fighting spirit in their own country. Many escaped overseas to find jobs and to look for a better life. The people lost hope in their own country and their elites.

Did the Philippines meet these conditions? Some, but not all. The Pinoys are still in charge in their own countries and foreigners could not boss around with them of abuse them. The foreigners know that in the Philippines, the Pinoys are the owners and they better behave well in front of the Pinoys. They would not dare to beat up a Pinoy. There is still pride in the Pinoys. How can they be called the Sick Man of Asia?  It is not just about money? Money is dignity? It is national pride, the pride as a nation, as a people. Lose that, you become the Sick Man of Asia.

A Sick Man of Asia is when a country is taken over by foreigners, run by foreigners, foreigners could boss around with the locals and the locals are helpless when abused by the foreigners. When the foreigners formed and lived in foreign enclaves and sneering and despising the natives. And the natives lost all pride and spirit to live, lost confidence in themselves, all planning to run away from the country, when their very own govt cannot protect them, cannot offer them good jobs, and the good jobs were taken over by foreigners.

I definitely disagree that the Philippines is the Sick Man of Asia. They even despise daft Sinkies.

The trend of development in GRCs

The statisticians and social scientists that read trends to predict the future and who are looking at the trend of GRC development would point to one conclusion. I show you the conclusion later.

We started with single seat constituencies. Every MP stood for one constituency to represent one constituency of people. Then the conventional wisdom and realities changed. There was a need to ensure minority candidates are present in Parliament. The wisdom of the day said the people would be voting on ethnic grounds and minority candidates would not be elected in the future. No one was up to it to question this hard truth. So that was it. There shall be light, oops, there shall be GRCs. Each GRC should have 3 or 4 candidates with one from the minorities.

After a few elections, different needs appeared. Now the reason was not to ensure minority representation but other convenient or practical reasons like economy of scale, efficiency, expediency, ministers very busy so need other MPs to cover for them, or when one dies, others can cover the dead MP’s duties and so on and on. See the shifting goal posts and reasons?

Then we have bigger and bigger GRCs, the unsinkable battleship, the bigger the battle. Weak oppositions were struggling to catch up to field even a GRC with decent candidate and with the cash. But that was their problem. Big GRCs were good and the intent and purpose were good. It was good for the politics of the country, like Elected President was better than Appointed President.

Then again things changed. Big GRCs not so good leh. So must have lesser big GRCs. Reasons I am still blur. And now I heard there is a need to have more smaller GRCs and SMCs. Reasons I also dunno but must be good for the political system and for the country and people.

See the trend and reasoning? So the next change, what would be the next change, what is the trend leading to? Yes, GRCs are bad and we must go back to SMCs.  Why, because the people are not really racist, they are Singaporeans and colour blind. The Singaporeans would vote for good candidates regardless of race, language and religion. This is in the national pledge, idiot. There is no need for GRCs. And some may be wondering, which smart alec came up with this GRC thing? What crap! But this is the future. I am bringing this up as a social scientist would do, to study the social trend and make a prediction of the future political system as the trend will take. As they say, things will come around in circles.

All back to square one. In the process everyone was taken for a ride without a say and without knowing why.  And who knows, there will be no more Elected President in the future and the President sitting in the Istana will be just a ceremonial president and no multi million dollar salaries in the future, just a presidential stipends of $500k a year.

Hillary Clinton to be indicted!

John Harding seems to be very well informed of such exciting news. He is working on a leak that Hillary is going to be indicted by the FBI while I am working on a story on how to get Hillary to run in the next GE as a candidate for the opposition parties.

John Harding is still working on his story but I will just quote this from his blog.

‘Obama does not want to be linked to Hillary Clinton as the Benghazi attack was staged by a State Department hired jihadist security outfit in connection with and as a cover-up for the transfer of Libya’s vast arms cache to al-Qaeda and ISIS mercenaries in Syria and Iraq.’

This is bizarre news. If true, Hillary’s ambition to be the first female President of the Empire will go up in smokes.

Wow John.

PS. This is the strength of the American democratic system when there is real separation of power, where a rogue executive, even the President, can be indicted, not only a Secretary of State. And they don’t suka suka change their constitution because someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or someone had a nightmare.

Revisionism of the Constitution and Political System

While many changes are being proposed in Parliament, I think it is important at this point to note that Singapore is a democracy and the citizens have certain rights enshrined in the Constitution. In a democracy, the citizens are the owners of the country and have the right to elect who they want to represent them in Parliament and who should be the President of the country. The citizens also have the right to stand for election as the people’s representative in Parliament as well as to be the President of the State. Any legislation that removed these rights of the people must be unconstitutional. What would the legal minds say of these assertions? I bet none would dare to open his or her mouth on these issues. So the citizens will be just as blind and as dumb with regard to their rights as citizens on these issues. The big question, can a ruling party legislate away the rights of the people to stand for election as the President of the country? The so called restrictive and limiting criteria to be eligible as a presidential candidate are like the natural aristocrats carving out a niche for themselves, excluding the masses, depriving the masses of a basic right as a citizen of the country.

I hope all of you can share your views here and in other forum or public discussions whether the proposals to the changes to the Elected President system violate the Constitution, undermine the rights of the citizens to be president and to elect the President of the State.

I am not going to suggest an easier method to satisfy the conventional mantra of the day, that the candidate for the Presidency must have blue or purple blood. If that be the case a simpler solution would be to legislate that only the scions of ex Presidents and Prime Ministers are eligible to stand for election as the next President. This would also solve the minority representation issue.

Having said that, the people must not be misled by the shifting goal posts. The citizens must not forget the first principles, that is, they are the owners of this country. Every citizen has the right to stand for election as the President of the State and that it is their right to elect whoever they want to be the President of the State, blue blood, purple blood or red blood is not an issue or limiting factor. In a democracy, the people can even elect a beggar or a blind man to be the president of the state. It is democracy and it is their democratic right. No one can take this right from the people. No one can legislate this right away from the people. Do not treat the people as daft and unthinking and would anyhow suka suka elect any rogue to be the President. Please do not insult the intellect of the electorate.

Tiok boh?

They said everything begins with a good intention. The devil is in the details. Watch the details carefully.

Careful tweaking of political system is Spore’s way backward

Oops, oops, I am a bit dyslexic today. I read something in the paper and, ok, ok, now I remember, the title of the article is ‘Careful evolution of political system is Spore’s way forward’.  Apologies, apologies.  How can the evolution of the political system in the hands of righteous, flawless, honourable, selfless, incorruptible and well meaning people whose only concern is the well being of Singapore and the Singaporeans be going backward? Cannot be mah. Singapore is really so bless to have so many generations of good men and women in charge.

Now the good men and women in charge are suddenly charged with a body full of adrenalin and great inspirations and ideas to carefully tweak our political system for the future, to last ten thousand years. There are so many good changes coming up, NCMP lah, elected president lah, minority interests lah, smaller GRCs and more SMCs and many more that it would fill a library if I would put them down in words. I have so many things to say, so many ways of saying them. Maybe over the weekend I shall spend some time talking about them in more details.

Now why are the people, oops, some people, especially those from the opposition camps, sounding so unhappy? Why are they objecting? Just cannot understand them. All the proposals are good things, for the good of the country and people. I think the opposition camps should just shut up and listen quietly, like all good boys in schools will do, like children at home will do when papa speaks.

Seriously, I cannot find any single thread of fault in the proposals printed in the main media. They all sounded so good, so encouraging, so progressive, full of good intentions. I also read and heard so many praises that we are moving forward. Sorry Cheng Bock, sorry Jee Say, I didn’t hear your objections.

It is good that the Singapore political system should evolve around the goodness of natural aristocrats and not around peasants. The natural aristocrats have many in born qualities, or greatness by birth that peasants can never hope to possess. One of the most important things is that their blood is purple in colour.

Ok, when a person has purple blood, he must be exceptional. It would be good if our political system is run by people with purple blood. All those with blood of the commoners, red, please step aside and be good.  Remember your station in life and do the part you are born to do, to listen and obey, be the doers, not thinkers or leaders. Stop objecting, resistance is futile.