Singapore Angle

US Size Matters and the ASEAN Way

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:52:13 +0800

The Cable, over at Foreign Policy, notes that the Obama administration is sending a sizable high-powered team to attend the upcoming APEC Summit in Singapore; it also finds it noteworthy that the side-meeting between the US and all ten ASEAN countries is finally taking place and sees it as a reaction against China's recent diplomatic successes. Back in 2007, in a Foreign Affairs piece marking ASEAN's 40th anniversary, Amitav Acharya argued that:

The fact that the region's most powerful players - including China, India, and the United States - show deference to ASEAN by participating in these forums demonstrates that ASEAN still matters.

Acharya lists for four 'areas of accomplishment' to explain this. First, ASEAN's relative longevity as the pre-eminent regional organization. Second, no member states have had serious armed confrontations with each other. Third, ASEAN helped bring peace to Cambodia and integrate Vietnam. Fourth, it was instrumental in getting China and other extra-ASEAN powers to engage in its regional multilateral processes.

John Ravenhill assesses these four points in his Review of International Studies article, 'East Asian Regionalism: Much Ado About Nothing?' (abstract). He points out that longevity is a 'double-edged sword' as it invites comparisons with younger organisations that have managed to do more. I suppose ASEAN doesn't fare too badly when compared with the posturing and theatrics at the United Nations General Assembly but Ravenhill's point is well-taken when you think of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's joint military exercises and Inter-Bank Council or the African Union's peacekeeping missions.

While it is true that no ASEAN member state has gone to war with another, Ravenhill finds it impossible to prove that ASEAN was the cause of this 'in a non-tautological manner' as opposed to, say, the Pax Americana. He goes on to cast doubt on Acharya's claim by citing studies by Tobias Nischalke and Christopher Roberts (PDF 1|2). The former finds that ASEAN norms have little impact on member states' behaviour while the latter's systematic survey of grassroots and elite opinion in ASEAN found low trust in others to be good neighbours; those survyed in Singapore and Thailand 'were least certain that there would be no intra-ASEAN conflict in the next twenty years.' When you look at the long list of problems and close calls noted by Andrew Tan's Intra-ASEAN Tensions (partial PDF), one might say that those surveyed were just being realistic.

On the Cambodia issue, Ravenhill notes its early success but ultimate conclusion due to 'great power intervention under UN auspices' as the deciding factor, citing Michael Leifer's ASEAN and the Security of South-East Asia (which I have not read). IIRC the chapter on the Cambodian war in Leifer's book, Singapore's Foreign Policy (which I have read), was even less laudatory about the early phase, reminding us of ASEAN's support, at the tacit behest of China and the US, for the murderous Khmer Rouge.

Ravenhill is also cautious about the weight that should be given to ASEAN with respect to China's accession to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC). He argues that, during that period, China had been going all manner of global organisations to claim its rightful place in the world and regional organisations to balance Japan. Furthermore he notes the reservations appended to the TAC accessions of Australia, South Korea and Japan.

He goes on to assess ASEAN economic integration and functional cooperation, noting how 'there is more than a little irony when [member states] are willing voluntarily to sign on to these agreements with extra-regional actors but maintain a reluctance to commit themselves to similar agreements within ASEAN itself.' One only has to look at the rather lacklustre progress towards complete removal of all tariffs on non-scheduled goods in compliance with AFTA's 2010/15 deadline much less cutting down the bloat in the Sensitive and Highly Sensitive schedules.

Ravenhill concludes that ASEAN has been far less effective than even its own member states' arrangements with extra-regional partners, mainly due to unclear and unenforceable obligations compounded by ineffective dispute settlement mechanisms. While The Cable pokes fun at the lack of substance that the Obama administration's delegation will be bringing to the agenda and negotiation table, one could say that they are merely showing deference to ASEAN by doing things the ASEAN Way.

National Pledge, the Super Sign and the other Crutches of Humanity

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:35:19 +0800

The recent exchanges between Nominated MP Viswa Sadasiva and PAP Ministers and MPs in parliament appear to reveal an unexpected victory for the PAP in trumpeting its commitment to vague ideals of the Singapore pledge. But to what extent did the underpinnings of their speeches really diverged from one another?

NMP Sadasiva used the "national pledge" as a platform to discuss views of civil liberties, democracy and economic modes of development in Singapore. But it was not a simply a fortuitous choice; but rather, a direct reference to the use of the pledge in the recent National Day celebrations. In an uneasy bid to shore up nationalism in Singapore, the NDP committee had to come up with something new, yet familiar enough so that Singaporeans would not have to sacrifice their time to learn how to perform this "new" act. In doing so, they promoted an island wide pledge taking moment at 8.22 p.m. in a designed public holiday. They solicited Singaporeans' views on the pledge, in which individuals like Sadasiva gamely took on.

One is reminded of a similar strategy adopted by the Workers' Party at their very last rally in the last election. The use of the national anthem was to emphasize the loyalty of the party to the state, and to urge Singaporeans to consider the tenets of the anthem and the pledge when they go to the polling booths. The super sign in contemporary Singapore emerges then, with cultural consequences on the electorate that challenges the sole consideration of economic concerns in the polling booth. Workers' Party did well in the election due to its efforts in promoting a super-sign. The super-sign was lodged, if temporarily, in the positive consciousness of ordinary Singaporeans.

Once the proverbial pledge has reappear with the help of multiple agents in this years' national day, it was hard for the PAP government to contain it. To distance themselves away from the super-sign towards the PAP, Minister Ng brought up the French constitution, the Thai and Rwandan anthem, to show that their corresponding countries did not quite live up to their "rhetoric" of their pledge. Such a strategy has its flaws, but one has to admit that it was a vigorous attempt in containing the super-sign. In addition, the word "aspiration" was added into the amended motion, changing the commitment to the letter of the pledge, to an emphasis on the "idealized" nature of it. The super-sign was deemphasized, in place, the linear history and future emerge. MM Lee Kuan Yew reveals such a straight temporal line, drawing upon his own experiences in shaping one in his books, speeches and through his political proxies,

And I thought to myself, 'perhaps I should bring this House back to earth', and tell us and remind all what's our starting point, what is our base and if we don't recognise where we started from and these are our foundations

This linearity, which discounts idealism, appeared to be a rebuttal to the idealized future of the NMP. Yet, to what extent too was the NMP's vision not similarly linear too? The NMP wanted the pledge to lead the way forward in terms of "repoliticizing" the young, so that they will once again be interested in national affairs. A society of individuals where everyone would be highly informed on public affairs will result in a virtuous and wise and compassionate society, akin to the counterfactual scenario of Robert Putnam's "Bowling alone." More importantly, this progressive vision would enable a society where trust would permeate, rather than a top-down rule based on the assumptions of elites-know-best.

The popular website, the onlinecitizen, proclaimed a similar progressive future in its editorial on the issue if one would hold on to the pledge. In their words, "If you do, then I promise you, surely change will come."

The very discourse of hope and change in the form of linear future, from multiple agents in Singapore on the debate of the super-sign, invokes a sense of an utopia on both ends. The methods might differ slightly but the super-sign was constantly invoked. While the PAP appealed to phenomenal reality (look at this grandeur and comfort of this house, it reeks of accountability), the NMP and their supporters craved a more abstract story of pseudo social-construction (we were made to believe XYZ were better than freedom, accountability and participatory democracy).

The ends were similar though . The creation of a straightforward past, be it one of systematic undermining and co-opting of the opposition or the great economic growth of Singapore (or both), was now projected into a linear future of prosperity, democracy and justice. Both sides want the best for Singapore, so they claim in their speeches.

However, an uneasy disquieting lies below these utopic visions. Ultimately, they lack a sense of inclusion. For example, the onlinecitizen's editorial deliberately excluded those who appealed to the status quo:

Change will come from those citizens of our country who put their hands to their chest and mean every word of our National Pledge, not from those who deride it as impractical aspiration...... The day has come, a line has been drawn in the sand, between those who believe in living Rajaratnam's vision, and the men who see it as empty rhetoric. (notice the linear past evoked)

Likewise, the PAP showed its unhappiness towards the usual problematic suspects in its idealized future; those who cross boundaries on politics, race and religion that disturb a harmonious society. In other words, those "who refuse to come down to earth" will be dealt with.

More fascinating however, is how the NMP, with its rhetorical strategy in placing the super-sign front and center of the national debate, showed his status in the Singapore political hierarchy by his reaction. He appeared to backtrack on some of his points, calling the interpretation of his otherwise clear speech as a "misunderstanding." One not longer feels confident on his earlier assertion of a progressive future, or where he stands on the exclusivity of his political vision. In the New Paper, he revealed how he was afraid that MM Lee would give him a mauling. His backtracking might have revealed his instinctive position - as an NMP and chairman of feedback committees. Is it then the dilemma of a collaborator - someone who knows the system intimately, promotes the system by daring to be at the front line with the enemies and ordinary folks, but plays a loyal opposition, in search of the sympathy of elusive liberals in the political institutions?

Or is he showing what it means to be a human in the Singapore society - regardless of one's political position and power hierarchy in the system - in that one needs the super-signs, linear pasts and exclusive futures to survive in a system that is least understood from the within?

Postscript: The idea of "super-sign" was drawn from Lydia Liu's incisive analysis of the emergence of a super-sign in late Qing China between the interaction of the Qing state and their British counterparts.

Back to the Future Enhancements

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:30:50 +0800

The Savings and Employee Retirement Plan, or Saver scheme, for commissioned SAF officers was launched with much fanfare in 1998. Two years later, the PREMIUM scheme, for warrant officers was launched. Last month, it was announced that the career schemes for officers and WOs will be 'enhanced' and that a third career track, the Military Domain Experts Scheme (MDES), was being created.

This post recalls some of Saver's backstory and how that might illuminate possible issues for EOCS, EWOCS and MDES. A caveat: as they like to say, especially regarding security and military affairs, those who know don't speak and those who speak don't know so readers are forewarned not to take the following as definitive. Corrections and clarifications are, as always, most welcome.

Too Little Too Early

One big gripe with Saver was that the retirement age (called Saver End Date, henceforth SED), 42-45, was too early. It's worth recalling that, more than 10 years ago, Saver was a bold experiment to replace and streamline manpower schemes such as Contract Service (CS), Pensionable Service (PS) and Full CPF (also to reduce the gahmen's long term entitlement spending by greatly reducing the pool of personnel entitled to final salary pensions).

It's also worth remembering that the retirement age for officers was 55 (with the retirement age for the rest of the population at 60 - now higher); promotion was often excruciatingly slow - not uncommon for officers to retire as CPT (whereas now MAJ2s seem to grow on trees). As such, 42-45 didn't seem too early plus it would give officers a head start in starting their second careers, cushioned by a gratuity-like payout of funds vested over the course of an officer's career upon reaching SED.

This might be fine if an officer was single and without dependents at 42-45. But that's not your average profile of an SAF officer. Let's assume if most of them married at 29 and had two children by 33, the kids would still only be in secondary school at SED. Not a great time for instability and uncertainty on (yes, malecentric) Daddy's (un)employment front. And imagine what the wife would say. With the perception and fear of widespread and growing ageism in the private sector, it looked rational to bail out in their 30s - a particular pool being those who had taken local scholarships (with less promising Routes of Advancement compared to Overseas scholars but who also do a lot of the necessary but unglamorous saikang) once they had completed serving their bonds.

The new age of 50 recalls the pre-Saver trend when officers could retire at 55 but tended to take early retirement not longer after they hit the big Five O. The additional five to eight years of salaried income and job security (rather than wondering whether SED will be 42, 43, 44 or 45) might persuade more to stay on until SED. And the timing seems about right to use some of that Saver payout towards the kids' tertiary education. Assuming some of it didn't get docked after some HBOI though.

Vesting Turns Into Exit Light

This early exodus of officers was not anticipated. Mainly because it had been anticipated. But the incentive of vested Saver funds was put in place to ensure officers stay until 42-45 may have become perverse and actually exacerbated the problem it was designed to solve.

Over the course of an officer's career, some of his pecuniary benefits are not paid out as his salary and to his CPF account but rather vested with the Saver fund (which would be invested - the less than stellar overall returns is another long story). The longer the officer remained in service, the more of that vested amount he would receive when he eventually left service. I don't know what the scale was like but apparently it seemed to reinforce the decision of officers to leave earlier (in their 30s) rather than stick it out to SED; a reason I heard a lot was: 'Percentage loss is bigger but absolute amount is smaller if I leave early. And can kena cong gong if suay suay tio charge.'

Leaving early also gave a sense of being able to 'lock-in' vested funds. Officers could be penalized, having a percentage of their Saver vesting withheld or confiscated, if they got into trouble over the course of their service. The super vague, catch-all offence under Sect 25 of the SAF Act was something that hung over those who served in a complex and demanding environment where, it seemed, sometimes, anything that could go wrong would go wrong. Those who, for whatever reasons, got 'stuck' and had to stick it out until SED went into what was jokingly called 'Saver Protection Mode'.

Sure, Saver didn't invent the Great Watermelon stance. But given Saver's earlier retirement age reducing the number of months of steady pay and the size of Saver payout at risk anticipated to be larger than a PS payout or CS gratuity, it's rational for an officer to become more risk adverse as a result, especially if he's superscale but not that superscale.

There's not been any mention about how vesting will work in EOCS or if it will changed substantially but one expects that at least the scale will be tinkered with to discourage early exit. Whether this will, once again, have unintended consequences is a completely speculative exercise at this point.

Both Eyes Open, Both Hands Tied

One of the things that made Saver different from previous schemes was that it had an investment component to sweeten the deal. Officers (and later WOs under the 2000 Premium plan) could opt for various combis: Dynamic (10% cash, 20% bonds, 70% equities), Balanced (10% cash, 40% bonds, 50% equities) or Stable (50% cash, 50% bonds). After a whole series of exogenous shocks, including SARS, DotCom, WorldCom/ENRON, this carrot didn't really come into fruition - I have no idea how much better or worse off officers' Saver pots were overall but it sounded ominous when officers were allowed to change their allocation to Stable two years prior to SED.

Although many officers knew the risks of a Dynamic allocation when they signed on the dotted line, not quite a few felt extremely unhappy when this dynamism took them into negative territory. In the aftermath of Lehman Minibombs, any new scheme that has an investment component will require additional transparency and disclosure by the fund manager, more effective financial education of the officer-investor and better due diligence to tie both ends in.

There is another group of people who did not want to convert to Saver at all. They preferred the then relatively less lucrative but much more secure option of PS. I've heard from more than one officer that they were told by superiors that if they did not convert from PS to Saver, their promotion prospects would be adversely affected. Again, pure hearsay and no way to prove or disprove it (say, by looking at how many of the most senior officers are actually still on PS). Nonetheless, the repeated instances I have heard these stories point to one takeaway for future policy: It's important to have a good policy. But it's also important to implement it in a way that will not cause a lot of fear and resentment. Particularly when it's in sectors that you can't wave away manpower problems by importing foreigners. It remains to be seen if EOCS, EWOCS and MDES will be shoved down the throats of currently serving personnel.

Leadership By Example

Ho Shu Huang writing in the RSIS Commentary 56/2009, 'An About Face to the Future: The SAF's New Career Schemes' (PDF) bemoaned how:

Military service is now a career, as opposed to a calling, subjected to the expectations of the self-centred and self-confident Generation Me who ask not what they can do for the organisation, but what the organisation can do for them.

One could extend his tirade into the realm of politics. Ministers appointed after 1 Jan 1995 are no longer eligible for pensions. But I don't think any Minister who was already entitled to and/or receiving a pension already offered to convert or forego it, regardless on the economically long-term rational mass abolition of pension schemes (around 1986 except Admin Service, Intel Service). This is probably comparing apples and oranges (or mere mortals) but it's not surprising that many officers, and indeed many Singaporeans, don't see it that way.

Temasek's Rebranding

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:02:40 +0800

The exit of Ho Ching can be seen as the rebranding of Temasek as a Government-Linked Company to a domestic crowd, and as a Sovereign Wealth Fund to an international audience. Ho Ching's send off is overall a nicely timed publicity move to restore some hope in Temasek, especially when its high profile strategic investments in Wall Street have suffered considerable short term paper loses brought about by the subprime crisis.

Objectively, Temasek practices going long and its investment time frame is minimally 10 years, according to the rhetoric and the rationale behind these modern imaginations of the East India Company. However, Temasek's declaration that its assets shrank by 31% from S$185 billion to S$127 billion in less than a year is still a painful national introspective moment. The fact that Temasek's assets in 2004 stood at S$90 billion and now it stands fatter at S$127 billion despite the recent crisis is easily forgotten when such significant losses are reported.

Temasek after Ho Ching

Ho Ching was in Temasek since 2002, and what a controversial reign. Under Ho Ching's watch, 40% of the SWF's investments are locked into financial institutions and with no bottom yet in sight, Temasek's rhetoric of buying low and value investing is increasingly harder and harder to sell in the prevailing gloomy short term mood. Moreover, Temasek's oblique involvement in destablising Thai politics because of the Shin Corp acquisition in 2006 is an embarrassing geopolitical and financial blight on Ho Ching's tenure at Temasek. Nevertheless, she has to be credited for the SWF's inaugural annual report in 2004 which transformed the SWF's image into one of more transparency and accountability, 30 years after the SWF was founded.

Since 2007 particularly, SWFs from the UAE to Singapore were viewed with suspicion, and the SWFs in turn made placating Vulcan split hand gestures to assure the US and other governments that they come in peace to live long and prosper together. The surprise appointment of Chip Goodyear as Temasek CEO from October 1 this year is a progressive marketing move and part of this assurance package. The SWF's glare as a Singapore government entity is dimmed a bit consequently. Although Temasek's next acquisition in Wall Street or in a regional telco would still be greeted with trepidation and conspiracy theories, it would probably be less so than if the wife of the PM is in-charge of the SWF. Local and international expectations of greater openness will increase after Chip officially takes over later this year. Hopefully, Temasek's attempts to charm partners and ward off xenophobic protectionism will continue if not expand .

The appointment of the American at the helm will drive the message that Temasek should be seen as any other big rejuvenated MNC. Furthermore, the new CEO also brings the promise of new ideas. There is already speculation that because of Chip's mining industry background, this would open doors for Temasek's diversification into commodities.

Ho Ching after Temasek

At the local front, Ho Ching's exit sends mixed political signals to a domestic crowd. Temasek now has the opportunity to rebrand itself as a proper GLC, if there is such a thing as a proper GLC, and not a Lee-Linked Company as critics like to see it as. Temasek's re-emphasised brand identity is that it is not related to the ruling elites, but it serves state interests first and foremost. The replacement of Ho Ching with an outsider, a non-citizen and an American even, is a political statement that there is no Lee Dynasty, and that Ho Ching is not after Temasek at any cost. Some might even say that it is a controversial endorsement of the "meritocratic" foreign talent policy and that there is no commercial job that a foreigner cannot hold, economic recession or not.

However, her abdication has opened up more questions on where the outgoing Temasek CEO might end up next. The Internet is already rife with crystal ball gazing as Ho Ching being the next President, CEO of another major GLC or local icon like DBS since Richard Stanley will be taking his bow soon presumably. If that is the case, then the small public relations gains from Ho Ching stepping down from Temasek, only to saunter into another Singapore political-economic position of power, could be wasted.

Everyday Forms of Collaboration

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:23:01 +0800

Almost a year and a half ago, I wrote about the everyday forms of resistance in Singapore on Singapore Angle. In recent months however, I began to take more interest in the other side of the coin, which is more troublesome to think and write about but perhaps far more intriguing - the issue of collaboration or participation in Singapore. This has been partly inspired by Dr. Timothy Brook's recent groundbreaking work on collaboration in China during World War II. Brook's book is both haunting and compelling. He challenges us to consider beyond the binary of collaboration and resistance to think about issues of appearances, costs, rivalry, and depth of state penetration that is associated with the disentangling of the binary. He hopes that one day, that could be a separation of the moralizing power of the rhetoric of collaboration from the scholars' professional investigation of the everyday forms of collaboration on the ground. In addition, he makes a more limited definition of collaboration and renders agency on both the state and the participants, instead of arguing along the thesis that everyone collaborates. Given this context, how do we think about everyday forms of collaboration in Singapore then?

Thinking about collaboration at this stage is largely preliminary and I will be happy to stand corrected at any part of this discussion. Because of the lack of space to discuss the intricacies that underpins collaboration, I would also use the word participation at certain points instead, which entails a less loaded word and requires less explanation in a short SA article. But fundamentally, to what extent then is every Singaporean a willing collaborator if we play with the term too much? Is collaboration the right word to use? Do Singaporeans participate in our regime because there is no choice (bo pian)?

Untangling Bopianess

The discourse of bopianess (沒辦法) is particularly interesting, because it is tied to another contemporary discourse, Sianness . If Sianness denotes an expression of lack of interest amidst one's busyness, bopianess reveals a peculiar Singapore modernity that involves expressing one's busyness amidst the lack of interest for an alternative. This lack of interest, to a modern day critic, would derive from the lack of intellectual rigor and emotional courage to search for an alternative to get out of the bopian situation. To what extent is that true?

A generation of Singaporeans graduating from the JC system that started in the 1969 increasingly fill important positions in Singapore society, ranging from business to politics to government to education. The education base in which elites in Singapore are derived from has shrunk in thinking about the PAP state since 1959. Could concentrated levels of thinking about resistance/collaboration and job opportunities be more contained within the compounds of these institutions that it was in the past? Increasingly, more and more Singaporeans have grown up in Singapore where there has not been an alternative party in power in their lifetime. Over their lifetime, the army's rhetoric in instilling the core values of a citizen-soldier is in full swing and improves with technology over time. It is likely and possibly that the Singaporean women are even more supportive of the military and the ideals of a citizen-soldier than the actual participant in the military. Not only that, much of the autonomous sectors of the economy, ranging from unions to media to government linked corporations, are linked to the state. Very few of them (and maybe us) openly oppose the political regime, and often actively participate in the regime itself. Some have even advocated jingoism, often comparing the superiority of Singapore and the exportation of the Singapore brand in relations to either the increasingly insolvent and decadent West or the economic and cultural backwardness of the East, playing the Oriental and the Occidental simultaneously.

Bopianness in the political context, as one imagined, will likely to be invoked by the participant accused of collaboration (often at a later date) where the participants' actions somehow becomes unacceptable in the contemporary political context. Hypothetically, someone who orders/participate/approves publicly of the detention without trial of political activists at one point in the past, if asked to account in the future or even the present, might argue that he or she "bopianly" did so. The discourse will likely to go like this: I did it because I needed a job, I did it because I have a family, I did it because someone higher up wanted/ordered me to do so. Basically I had no choice but to participate unwillingly given the context of the time.

If collaboration is extended to everyday forms of discourse, a probable scenario as followed frequently occurs too in Singapore. Hey Mr. Tan, I thought you really did not like the government/hated civics and moral education/did not sing national anthem/never tuck in your uniform and also late after canteen break when you were in Jc, how come you are working in the education ministry today? A reply might be, "Bo pian lah brother, I need a job. The economy is bad. The private sector pays poorly loh and the government is actually treating people well. I mean if I was to do it again, I probably would not have tuck out my shirt so much. Aiyah, young days mah. You don't know meh, I resist secretly bysometimes defying my boss, telling people about how bad the ministry is in the pub and taking longer coffee breaks."

Can the idea of collaboration be gendered too? Since women in Singapore have been perceived by some as participating less actively in the regime, will their discourse of "bopianess" have greater currency? As many teachers in Singapore are women, do they play a particular role in forming the next generation of youngsters within the confines of a panoptical school system that might perpetuate the possible rhetoric of bopianess for another generation?

Assembling a Functional State and Individual - From Bopian to "I choose leh" (我�?�擇的 loh!)

Yet bopianess can be reinterpreted in the realities of the Singapore context. Did not participants in the current PAP regime actually provide essential services to ordinary Singaporeans? Did not/Do not many men and women within the PAP sincerely advocated for the voice of the ordinary people, and often mitigated the worst of the policies melted out from the top above either behind the scenes or openly? Without ordinary Singaporean participants in the RC, would we have lantern festivals and Hari Raya celebrations that bring the Singapore community together? If we all resist, will there be a functional state in Singapore? Can we live/Should we live/How do we live in a state that has more people who resist rather than participate?

What about those who invoke the mantle of "I choose one leh because I believe what I did was best for Singapore at the times?" Are these people necessary morally problematic because they declare themselves so? Do we admire them for their courage and their moral perseverance? What do we intellectually make of the term "collaboration" then?

To sum up, I am interested in writing two more posts in thinking about collaboration - one about the perception of Overseas Singaporeans on the issue of participation and their potential (misfounded) moral high ground and the other about resistance (and lack thereof) in the country. For Singapore, it is not only that people participate in the running of the state, but also that the state depended on participants to enforce its power and privileges. Yet, in the writing of everyday forms of resistance and everyday forms of collaboration, are strawmen created for intellectual musings? Or is it in reality, heterogeneous Singaporeans resist and participate on our own terms on a daily basis free from issues of morality that persist in discussions on collaboration on a previous era?

Singapore General Election 2009 Likely?

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:05:22 +0800

In times of crisis with people gravitating towards the government for assistance in domestic concerns, it is usually a good time for ruling parties (from UK to Singapore) to call for a general election. With recent happenings in Singapore, is it worth the effort of the ruling party of Singapore to call for a general election? In this article, we examine the progress made by the government and the factors that might be for or against their favour in calling for one in the coming year.

With a global financial crisis propagating across the world since late September this year, most countries including Singapore will likely face a long period of negative growth. For some of us, this may be the most disastrous financial disaster in our life times which started off from a subprime mortgage crisis in late 2006. Depending on your own perspective, it is also a challenge because great wealth is usually created in such times.

How does this affect Singapore's political landscape? Given that the political scene in Singapore is strongly linked to the government's performance of managing the economy, it may be a possibility for the ruling party to call an election when people will gravitate and rally around a common cause in such difficult times. If you look back to the last two elections held in 2001 and 2006, you will see some emerging trends. The election in 2001 was called after September 11 and the internet bubble bursted. At that point, the ruling party used global events to rally the people, winning a landslide with 75.3% of the popular vote. Compare to the most recent election in 2006 where the economy was recovering, the ruling party only won 66.6% of the popular vote.

What has happened between last election till now? In 2006, Singapore was undergoing an economic recovery followed by the decision to build two Integrated Resorts and organizing the IMF-World Bank event. Within the last two years, Singapore has also brought the first F1 night race into her shores. With the building of the integrated resorts and Singapore's reputation as a financial hub for southeast Asia, there is a strong growth in private wealth, drawing not just from the rich within the region but from China, India, Middle East and Russia. With such growth, the domestic side of Singapore faced a different reality. The electorate has faced with the rise of the good and services tax (GST) from 5 to 7%, followed by a lot of real estate activity via en bloc sales, and finally led to a year of extraordinary inflation of 4.2% coming from rising costs from NETS payments, transportation, costs of living and utility bills. Of course, there are other issues which took centre stage over the past two years: the University of New South Wales debacle, the ministerial pay increase, the rise of retirement age to 67 with annuities scheme looming over the horizon, the recent purchase of shares on UBS, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch by Temasek and GIC and today, the losses of S$12M made by town councils from the constituencies held by the ruling party. With some issues that threatened and eroded the strength of the ruling party, the option to hold an election during such tough times may not be as appealing for the ruling party as compared to the one in 2001 that is focused mainly on national security.

There are a few factors that could tip the election both ways for the ruling party. Let's start from an optimistic position for the ruling party. The first will be the vast talent pool that the ruling party enjoyed in her selection of candidates. The strength of the PAP to attract competent talent who might have been dissenting voices against them in the past leaves the opposition very little opportunity in party growth. Even though the Workers Party (WP) has managed to attract professional talent in the last elections, it is still an uphill battle for them to be able to get people to contest in all the constituencies. In fact, in such difficult times, even with the electorate begrudging the high ministerial pay and the rising costs of living, they will prefer to vote for the ruling party with a pragmatic perspective given their strong track record in economic recovery. The second reason is strong grassroots support within the ruling party. The ruling party has a strong grassroots machinery that can be fully utilized to last a nine day election campaign from marketing to canvassing votes. In the last elections, the Workers Party had to rely on very few volunteers to help them with 10,000 flyers over one estate. If the strong infrastructure of the ruling party is not a factor, they have also provided good incentives for the electorate to vote for them, from estate upgrading to progress packages before and after the election.

How about the flip side of holding an election next year? Of course, if you are away from Singapore for the past two years, there are some changes on the ground. Being back from Cambridge for the past three years, I have witnessed one general election and a lot of interesting events moving from cyberspace to the real world.

Social or the "not so" new media has become a new tool for the opposition and civil society groups to take on the establishment on several niche issues. In fact, in the recent rally speech, the PM has made two announcements: (i) to allow political podcast and videocast online and (ii) the opening up of Hong Lim Park for protest. It is a telling sign that the ruling party has come to terms with the realization that there is no way to regulate cyberspace given the power of technology and social practices of netizens to spread information at such a quick rate. Even though the ruling party has adopted the principle of selective liberalization, it has given the society more space and diversity for debate with restrictive conditions. Within weeks of the opening of Hong Lim Park (aka Speakers' Corner), the online activists have now moved into the offline world, for example, the recent protests made by Tan Kin Lian in a non-partisan effort to seek redress from the financial institutions for the investors who bought the highly toxic structured Lehman products from the banks. If not more, we are also seeing a more outspoken younger generation who even used Facebook to organize a petition against transportation hikes in the polytechnics.

If that is not enough, a lot of young people in Singapore are lately inspired by the campaign ran by Barack Obama calling for change from the younger generation. The social media has transformed various political landscapes within the span of one year from US, Korea to Malaysia. The next election will be exciting because the last election only showed the Internet emerging as a platform to verify and counter checked the news from the mainstream press, like the famous Hougang photo from Alex Au. It has not reached the level of vote canvassing or political donation like the way how the Obama campaign has done with the US Presidential elections.

Recently, I have made a gentleman's bet (over a pint of beer) with Sze Meng (a fellow colleague here in SA) that the next general election will happen in 2009 (but seriously, it should be 2010). How will be the next general election decided upon? It depends on the people, the economy, and how the ruling establishment plans to navigate the country out of recession.

Author's Note: This article is originally published in the Temsoc Newsletter at the invitation of Ms Gayle Goh, the Temasek Society; a Singaporean political and current affairs society in the University of Cambridge. Note that I have made some edits to the original article published here.

A By-Election in Jurong GRC?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:27:16 +0800

Dr. Ong Chit Chung, a military historian and a member of parliament (MP) for the Group Representative Constituency (GRC) of Jurong, has passed away. His passing away is indeed a lost for Singapore. Not only did he take keen interests in the foreign and military affairs of Singapore as a backbencher, he also served faithfully in various committees in parliament. Dr. Ong was the chairperson of the estate committee. His various articles and books on the military history of Singapore llikewise deserve a wide readership among Singaporeans.

Yet Dr Ong's passing away triggers a related political question. Will there be a resulting by-election in Jurong GRC?

The recent past suggests that there would be no by-election in Jurong GRC. In 1999, Choo Wee Khiang, a PAP MP from Jalan Besar GRC, resigned from his seat after pleading guilty in the lower court to a charge filed last December of helping a businessman cheat a finance company of S$830,000 (US$481,159) by issuing false invoices. The Workers' Party, the Singapore Democratic Party, the Singapore's People Party, National Solidarity Party and an academic called for a by election then. "There should be a by-election as the next election is hardly soon. If it were coming soon, one could justify a short wait and use a caretaker MP from the next constituency," Wee Wan-ling, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies told the Straits Times then.

However, the then PM Goh Chok Tong announced that a by-election would not be held because he did not want Singaporeans distracted from efforts to recover from the economic crisis. As a result, the other 3 MPs in Jalan Besar "doubled-up" and took over Choo's duties in the GRC. Just prior to the PM's decision of whether to hold a by election, the Straits Times reported on June 6, 1999 that Chiam See Tong, the then leader of the SPP, argued that the real reason that Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has to deliberate over a by-election for Jalan Besar GRC is that he fears a repeat of the PAP's 1981 by-election defeat at Anson. The truth is that the memory of Anson is still in his mind," said Mr Chiam, who represents Potong Pasir.

Thus, if we draw upon the last election where the situation for the PAP was more difficult, it would be even more unlikely that there would be a by-election this time round. However, would it not be possible in the coming days that the PAP and the opposition, and by extension Singapore, would benefit from a by election process? This short article moves beyond the constitutional, "fairness" (whether 5 people should do 4 people work etc) and political expediency questions. These questions would likely be addressed in the mainstream and alternative media in the next few days. Rather I wish to explore the potential benefits for all parties if a by-election is held.

The last by election held in Singapore was almost 16 years ago in 1992, where a by-election was held in Marine Parade GRC to renew the PAP ranks. In retrospect, it was an important by-election and it proved to be beneficial for the PAP. For the PAP, the then PM Goh Chok Tong received a strong mandate from the people by winning 72.9% of the votes against a SDP that could mobilize increasing number of human and financial resources then. Teo Chee Hean was first introduced into politics in this fierce fight against the SDP. Today he is one of the most effective and creative ministers, both in policy making and on the ground. As for Singaporeans who hoped for a more thinking and critical curriculum in the late 90s, Minister Teo's appointment benefited them as his stint in the education ministry was more than crucial in reforming the education system away from substantive rote-learning towards a more holistic and diverse education system. The changing context of Teo's policies and the active demands of students and teachers throughout the 1990s made it possible for more routes to educational achievements to be explored then it was possible in the late 80s and early 90s. His Paris Ris GRC has become one of the strongholds of the PAP, and the presence of an election must have helped him to work the ground hereafter. The opposition has not managed to make much of a foothold in Paris Ris GRC, despite a growing number of young professionals in the constituency.

For the opposition, the election introduced Dr. Chee Soon Juan to Singapore politics. For better or for worse, Dr. Chee has gone on to be heavily involved in opposition politics in Singapore. He is the current Secretary-General of the SDP and has written several books on Singapore politics and has called for fundamental reforms in society. In addition, the NSP who contested in the election also solidified the experience of its veterans such as Tan Chee Kien and Ken Sunn, the latter whom is the current deputy President of the party.

Likewise, the PAP could draw upon its 1992 election as a way to renew the ranks in Jurong GRC, paving way for younger Singaporeans to undertake the next lap for the party, especially since the PAP's leaders have repeatedly called for increased renewal of the party. Would it not be possible that another Minister Teo would emerge from this by-election? As its own party leaders too agree, there is nothing like an election to introduce experience in electioneering, understanding the ground and challenging the opposition on issues that hold dear to Singaporeans for the candidates. Would that not benefit Singaporeans if their leaders have more experience in relating to the ground in the by-election process? After all, Barack Obama, the Presidential Candidate for the Democratic Party, recently said, "Don't tell me that words don't matter."

For the opposition, would it not be possible that a dream team could emerge to challenge the PAP through the availability of a by-election? Would a slate of candidates such as Sylvia Lim, Steve Chia, JBJ, and two new and credible faces not give them more experiences in moderating and clarifying their policies towards the people? Would it not be a win-win situation for Singapore if the opposition can take this opportunity to formed a united "all-star" team to contest against the PAP, thus drawing more credible people towards its ranks, thus providing a choice for Singaporeans in future elections?

Finally, the last election was fiery in Singapore, but it was conducted with poise by most members of the opposition and won with 2/3 of the valid votes by the PAP. How then would a by-election be a distraction from economic problems or be a waste of tax-payers' money if we have yet another opportunity to prove that democracy in Singapore works when a by-election can equip its leaders with skills needed to succeed in an increasingly complex society?

Values Education in Singapore - Tensions and Suggestions

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:00:51 +0800

"Values Education" refers to any explicit attempt to impart values to students in the formal education system. In the Singapore context, this mainly takes the form of the curriculum subject "Civics and Moral Education" (CME) as well as National Education (NE) initiatives. This article attempts to discuss some challenges faced by and tensions within the system, and to provide some suggestions on how to address such issues.

Values Education and MOE

The subject syllabuses for CME can be found here. Information on NE can be found on its official website. Upon examination it is easy to see a significant overlap in both CME and NE; both are designed with the very pragmatist motivations of the nation achieving social cohesion and economic success.

CME in particular, has been criticized as "citizenship training" rather than authentic moral education. Chew (1998) writes that:

"Whether the units are on marriage, responsible parenthood, civil defence, national campaigns or responding to global issues, the thrust of the written curriculum is to impart the knowledge, skills and attitudes considered as pertinent for good citizenship in Singapore."

As such, it is not a stretch to say that the primary objective of CME is to foster social cohesion much more than for students to learn and discover about elements such as morality, truth, justice, mercy.

Unlike CME, NE is not a classroom curriculum subject, but an overarching theme across the education experience for the student. As part of NE, schools celebrated important historical events such as Total Defense Day (the day Singapore fell to the Japanese), Racial Harmony Day (the 1964 racial riots) and National Day. International Friendship Day is also celebrated to commemorate the good relationship Singapore has with its neighbours. NE is also to be infused into the academic curriculum, with nation-building messages built into not just academic subjects like CME, History and Social Studies, but also in subjects such as Mathematics and the Sciences.

Tensions and Challenges

Where is the moral education?
It is possible to describe values education in Singapore as "nation-centric" (benefiting the nation as the ultimate purpose) rather than "student-centric" (benefiting the student as the ultimate purpose). Many has argued that anything other than a student-centric approach cannot be considered as education. However, it appears that such is not the view of policy makers within MOE, and it begets a larger question: is our education system as a whole even student-centric in the first place?

A closer examination will reveal that a very pragmatist philosophy permeates the whole of the education system from the top down. Education serves to drive the "knowledge economy" more than for education's sake, and in the same fashion, moral education (in the guise of CME) serves the greater good of "social cohesion" rather than for moral education's sake. This might not be an issue if it does not compromise on the content and quality of the education experience for the student, but for many (Tan & Chew, 2004), this is certainly the case for values education in Singapore.

CME and NE not taken seriously at the school level
Yet another manifestation of how the pragmatist culture permeates down to the school level is how schools and students are primarily occupied with measurable indicators of success such as school rankings and academic grades. In a highly competitive exam-orientated culture, CME and NE, being non-examinable, often take a backseat to examinable subjects in the minds of both school management and students. It is not a rare occurrence to find the CME classroom period used for revision of other academic subjects.

Teachers are found to care very little about CME. Chew (1998) notes that teachers are "disturbing non-critical" towards the contentious content of CME, and are seen as "implementers, not critics of the mandated programme". It is also suggested that teachers only pay "lip service" in teaching CME rather than taking it seriously. This is significant as teachers are mediators between the lesson and the students. If teachers cannot take the lesson seriously, it is hard to expect students, who will follow the role model of the teachers, to take them seriously as well.

MOE seems to be aware of this problem, and highlights that "NE must be instilled in the teachers and principals first" before they can impart it to students. How MOE can successfully achieve this is a challenge it will have to face, especially now that the teaching workforce is getting younger, more globalized and less inclined to buy into nationalistic messages.

Conflicting Messages
Despite social cohesion being the main rationale behind NE, Tan (2008) notes that "the tension between social inequalities and social cohesion permeates the underlying framework of NE." At the post-secondary level, there are different messages for students who are at the ITEs, Polytechnics or at Junior College. ITE students are to "understand that they would be helping themselves, their families and Singapore by working hard"; Polytechnic students are to learn that "the country's continued survival and prosperity will depend on the quality of their efforts"; and JC students are to be aware that "they can shape their own future" as well appreciate "the demands and complexities of leadership" as future leaders. This division among the various post-secondary education institutions clearly reflects a stratified view of society, and it is hard to reconcile this with the message of social cohesion and that there is "a stake for everyone, opportunities for all" that NE tries to bring across.

In order to prepare students for a more globalized economy, there has been a call to introduce a greater amount of critical thinking into the education system (Tan & Gopinathan, 2000). Initiatives such as Thinking Schools Learning Nation (TSLN) have been launched to reflect this change in ideology of education. Yet, against such a backdrop NE sticks out like a sore thumb. Students are to unquestionably accept given truths in NE, and are not encouraged to discuss controversial elements (Tan & Chew, 2004). There is already a perception among both teachers and students that NE is "nothing but propaganda", and it does not help to make claims like "NE must develop thinking" while at the same time not allow students to practice critical thinking by disagreeing with certain elements of NE.

Suggestions

It is easy, especially for those of us who have gone through the system and been disillusioned with NE, to be critical but the truth remains that there are very good reasons for fostering social cohesion and rootedness to the country. That people are becoming increasingly materialistic and consumerist may be a global phenomenon, but being a small country with limited resources, this problem is extra serious for Singapore. If the young generation does not feel rooted to the nation, there may be severe economic repercussions in the future. The government does not have an easy job, in fighting against the trend of an increasingly individualistic global culture and trying to inculcate "values", something that seems archaic by contrast. I would like to suggest that in the 21st century where access to information has become so different for the student, values education must take a new form. Traditional methods of getting students to unquestioningly accept values from authority simply will not work anymore, however sophisticated the form.

Allow for more Critical Thinking
The push for critical thinking in education and NE need not necessarily oppose each other. Students may be encouraged to think critically about national issues and values. But this can only be fruitful if they are given sufficient space and freedom to do so. Allow students to openly question policies, and let them genuinely consider arguments for and against. Instead of protecting students from anti-establishment views on the Internet, expose them to it and let them critically evaluate them. Is there a price to pay for doing this? Perhaps a percentage of students may adopt anti-establishment views themselves. But the benefit of this is that all students have the opportunity to argue and think critically about national issues. This is not just pedagogically desirable, but by allowing them to voice their views we are subtly increasing the stake students have in their own nation. Students are less likely to be apathetic and disinterested in political issues, a common complaint by the government.

Depoliticize Education
In this age of Information Technology, alternative views are easily accessible and people are more individualistic than ever. As a result, it is hard for both teachers and students to take anything resembling propaganda seriously. The key to improving this situation is not to provide extrinsic motivation by making NE examinable, or including it in school rankings and awards. This shifts the focus away from the subject matter, and only serves to make it more contrived and farcical.

NE has to be more objective and less pro-official. When presenting the history of Singapore, it is not historically or pedagogically appropriate to leave out significant but non-PAP figures such as David Marshall (Tan & Chew, 2004). It also means that it has to present controversies as controversies. Instead of purely lauding Singapore's unique democracy, issues should be presented with arguments for and against controversial aspects of our democracy such as Nominated Members of Parliament (NMPs) and GRCs.

When it comes to moral education, a holistic account of moral reasoning should be presented to students, and not just a pragmatist approach to it. No doubt discussion about citizenship responsibility falls within the purview of moral education, but citizenship responsibility alone does not equate moral education.

Conclusion: An apparent paradox

Under the desired outcomes of education, secondary school students should have "moral integrity" and "have care and concern for others". From MOE's approach to moral education, it appears that "moral integrity" and "care and concern for others" is not to be appreciated for it's own sake, but for its instrumental usefulness in building social cohesion. Similarly, secondary school students should "know and believe in Singapore", of which it is assumed that it would be apparent to the student that this "belief in Singapore" is of intrinsic value, i.e. it is good to know and believe in Singapore period, no questions asked. But this same "belief in Singapore" is only of extrinsic value to MOE policy makers, as it is yet another instrument for social cohesion. There are some double standards going on here. As long as such double standards continue to exist within the teaching of values education in Singapore, tensions will likely continue to be prevalent because there will always be some lack of coherence between conception and implementation.

To bridge this coherence gap, I have in essence argued for values education to take a more student-centric approach, rather than the current nation-centric focus. This is not a minor tweaking of the present system, but a major philosophical departure from the current approach. Should MOE really adopt such a radical change, it will not come without political costs. But my argument is not that values education should be student-centric because it ought to be so. While pragmatist approaches to values education may have worked in the past, they cannot work now in this new age of Information Technology where students are more individualistic, have easy access to alternative points of view, and need to develop critical thinking skills more than ever. So perhaps here is a paradox: the most pragmatic approach to values education may be to "de-pragmaticizie" it. Perhaps in this day and age, only an authentically presented values education can produce the desired results of a closer link between the hearts of students to the state of the nation.

References
Chew Oon, Joy (1998). Civics and moral education in Singapore: Lessons for citizenship education? Journal of Moral Education, Vol 27 (4).

Han, Christine. (2000). "National Education and 'Active Citizenship': Implications
for Citizenship and Citizenship Education in Singapore" Asia Pacific Journal of Education. Vol 20 (1) pg. 63-72

Kerr, David (1999). "Citizenship education in the curriculum: an international review". The School Field.

Koh, Aaron (2002). Towards a critical pedagogy: creating 'Thinking Schools' in Singapore. Journal of Curriculum Studies, Vol 34 (3), pp. 255-264

Koh, James & Chua, Dominic. (2008). Sexuality Education and 'Thinking Schools, Learning Nation'. In J. Tan & P. T. Ng (Eds.), Thinking Schools, Learning Nation: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (chapter 12). Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Ng, Pak Tee. (2008). Going Forward: Sketches on the Drawing Board. In J. Tan & P. T. Ng (Eds.), Thinking Schools, Learning Nation: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (chapter 17. Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Sim, Jasmine Boon-Yee & Print, Murray (2005). "Citizenship Education and Social Studies in Singapore: A National Agenda". International Journal of Citizenship and Teacher Education. Vol 1 (1) pg.58-73

Tan, Charlene. (2008). Tensions in an Ability-Driven Education. In J. Tan & P. T. Ng (Eds.), Thinking Schools, Learning Nation: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (chapter 2). Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall

Tan, Jason and Gopinathan, S (2000). Education Reform in Singapore: Towards Greater Creativity and Innovation? NIRA Review.

Tan, Jason. (2008). Whither National Education? In J. Tan & P. T. Ng (Eds.), Thinking Schools, Learning Nation: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (chapter 7). Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Tan, Tai Wei and Chew Lee Chin (2004). Moral and citizenship education as statecraft in Singapore: a curriculum critique. Journal of Moral Education, Vol 33 (4), pp. 597 - 606

Ministry of Education National Education Website

Ministry of Education Homepage

NTUC Fairprice Profitability and the Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility

Sun, 04 May 2008 18:30:04 +0800

NTUC is the proxy of the ruling party especially since NTUC Secretary-Generals are also hardly coincidentally PAP Ministers. NTUC, besides cynically seen as the trade union steered by the ruling party, actually also functions to make life and cost of living less painful. NTUC is more than a trade union umbrella organisation. From NTUC Income to NTUC Foodfare to NTUC Fairprice, NTUC's co-op outlets are an everyday facets of Singapore heartland consumerism.

With recent rising food prices, NTUC Fairprice is the NTUC flagship in the co-op's effort in making Singaporeans deal with inflation. While HDB and the CPF Board are more direct nation-building via rootedness agencies, NTUC Fairprice is maybe a soft nation-building supermarket at a consumerism level. Hence, with the increased cost of living and the PAP's open reluctance in distributing handouts as welfare, is NTUC Fairprice the subtle symbol of the continued compact or its lack of between the people and the ruling party as far as putting food on the table is concerned?

PAP and NTUC: An Open Courtship

The PAP and NTUC do not hide their collaboration or "symbiotic relationship". The PAP's master-maid ties with NTUC were formalised in the late 1970s during the Devan Nair era. This arrangement came about because then PM Lee Kuan Yew stressed the importance of the trade union being managed properly by the PAP and pondered on,

"how to ensure that the PAP-NTUC symbiotic relatonship will endure between younger leaders in the PAP and the NTUC. Put simply, who will educate a younger generation of union leaders to recognise their strengths and their limits; namely that if the union leadership challenges the political leadership, political leaders must triumph..."

After the 1979 NTUC seminar "Progress into the 1980s", NTUC and PAP institutionalised the collaboration when in September 1980, NTUC Secretary-General Lim Chee Onn became a Minister without Portfolio.

The Rising Food Prices and the Growing Grumblings

In December last year, NTUC Fairprice launched its 5% discount promise for its house brand essential items which includes rice, pasta, canned food, diapers, toilet rolls etc. The promotion was initially to last until February, then April, and now it has been extended till July. NTUC timed the promotion when inflation in Singapore in 2008 was expected to hit 5-6%. Therefore, the discount for the 500 house brand items only was meant to offset inflation for the cost but not brand conscious consumer. NTUC house branding is most aggressive now particularly when consumers are looking for cheaper substitutes in the supermarkets. From May, NTUC would also introduce the U-Stretch coupons which expires in December for eligible NTUC members. $4 million worth of $50 coupons would be distributed to "needy" NTUC members.

Furthermore, the recent efforts by Fairprice to help the "needy" adjust to inflation are echoes of its roots. The 1973 origins of Fairprice itself was in the context of the global oil shortage crisis and inflation, and helping union members to cope with the rising cost of living.

NTUC Fairprice's U-Stretch and selective 5% discount promotions are partly altruistic but also partly aimed at deepening market penetration and branding in this belt-tightening period. A critic can argue that Fairprice's promotion is "exploiting" consumers, preying on their need for a good deal rather than a genuine display of goodwill. There is some truth in this argument, but realistically after all, Fairprice supermarkets are supposed to be part of a co-op, not a charity.

Could NTUC Fairprice do more like offering the 5% discount to non-house brand items? It can but should it? Enter a variation of the shareholder and stakeholder debate. Fairprice's primary concern is the interests of its members, the raison detre of the co-op. To be fair, Fairprice because of its union roots is already more conscious about its image that it focuses more on stakeholder than shareholder interests compared with the other supermarkets. This stakeholder focus image is anyway clever marketing as all things equal, ethical consumers would want to patronise a retailer with a perceived track record of corporate social responsibility and of giving back to the community.

Nevertheless, precisely because of this image and open symbiotic relationship with the PAP, stakeholders including government critics would expect Fairpice to be concerned about corporate social responsibility than Cold Storage or Sheng Siong, and want more, citing Fairprice's profit of $100 million in 2007 in comparison with its U-Stretch and house brand promotion goodwill which cost Fairprice about $4 million and $4.5 million respectively.

NTUC Fairprice: Profit, Philanthropy and Politics

Recently, the government through ComCare set up a $1 million fund for the needy and reaffirming the PAP-NTUC symbiotic relationship to a extent, it has also decided to support any plan NTUC Fairprice has in addressing the inflation concerns of the lower income.

The government's policy towards handouts, pre-election or otherwise, has always been one-off e.g. GST Rebates or via a proxy. This is probably so that it is not packaged as a precedent for state welfare or as a sustained so-called "crutch". NTUC Fairprice's $4 million U-Stretch programme, 4 times the official aid the government set aside in this particular ComCare effort, fits into handout distribution mentality and method appropriately, and perhaps there is an unseen government hand in U-Stretch. This makes political sense as it boosts the image of Fairprice as the people's supermarket, and that NTUC takes care of its members first and with the selective 5% discount, Singapore society as a whole as well. Whether the Fairprice consumer is reminded that the PAP is rightly or wrongly the ultimate benefactor behind Fairprice's "generosity" is probably more subconscious than conscious.

Fairprice is about profit first. But as the co-op is politically associated with the PAP indirectly, its operations are sometimes confused as about being philanthropic first.

Fairprice, because of its geographical distribution, caters to a specific kind of consumer. Fairprice, because of its perceived pricing, caters to a specific kind of customer. Fairprice, because of its "local" image, caters to a specific kind of constituent. In short, Fairprice caters to the romanticised "heartlander". In a way, Fairprice's food discounts and indirectly the PAP, are imagined as helping the heartlander in times of need. Whether the heartlanders' needs are adequately addressed, perhaps they are for now if they shop for NTUC home brand items or are eligible NTUC members. But Fairprice is not doing more as there are shareholder limits to corporate social responsibility. All things equal, corporate social responsibility is always secondary to financial decisions and performance e.g. the more money made, the more can be spent to make an impact on society, and vice versa. Moreover, Fairprice is already probably a market leader and this token gesture of food discounts is sufficient for it to keep ahead of the pack now. Unless an opposition party can set up a SMC-based co-op supermarket "FairMarket" and offer its own cheaper house brands.

Mas Selamat's 2001 escape, 17 tonnes and preaching to the converted

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:44:19 +0800

This post was initially motivated by the question: Just how dangerous is Mas Selamat and what is the threat posed by his escape? Re-reading the Jemaah Islamiyah White Paper (released 7 Jan 2003) for the official threat assessment, I was then reminded that Mas Selamat had previously managed to flee before the Internal Security Department's Dec 2001 dragnet. It seems that he had been on the run for more than a year before it was announced, in Feb 2003, that he had been detained by the Indonesian authorities. After three years, Mas Selamat was finally deported back to Singapore in Feb 2006. So this isn't the first time that he has slipped through the ISD's fingers.

Wong Kan Seng Resignation Theatre

I should say, from the outset, that I do not agree with the calls for Mr Wong Kan Seng to resign over Mas Selamat's escape from the Whitley Road Detention Centre (WRDC). This probably reflects the conditioning from my time working in the civil service that has remained surprisingly intact even though I resigned a few years ago. Under the Westminster doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility [UK Parliament research paper PDF | Canadian research paper], ministers are responsible for policy decisions and civil servants are responsible for administration (i.e. implementation, operationalization).

While I share Mr Wang's reservations about including Dr Choong May Lin on the Committee of Inquiry (COI), I accept its findings that the failures were at the operational rather than the policy level.

In the case of the drowning of 2SG Hu Enhuai on 21 August 2003, due to an unapproved deviation from the lesson plan on Combat Survival Training, the instructors were suspended and punished, the Commanding Officer of School of Commando Training was relieved of his command and the Chief Commando Officer was reassigned. If the parallel is strictly applied, then the two Gurkha guards and the Special Duty Operative would be suspended and punished, the Director of WRDC relieved of command and his immediate superior reassigned (I do not know who is next in the ISD's command and control hierarchy).

Nonetheless a great opportunity for a rally round the flag moment was missed. Mr Wong could have swiftly offered his resignation, recognizing the larger issues at stake. A non-MIA PM Lee could have immediately declined it, citing convention and precedent as well as the Minister's past record, emphasizing the need for his continued contributions and focusing minds on what needs to be done next. This would have pre-empted calls for his resignation, pro-actively blunted criticism for not at least offering to resign and created the momentum to move on, a momentum that can't be created by turtling and head-in-the-sand.

And/Or the Minister for Home Affairs could have voluntarily taken a pay cut or, more plausibly, foregone a bonus [I owe this possible scenario to Loy], if only to demonstrate that not only the lower ranks pay for the consequences of mistakes/failures as well as to acknowledge and undercut grumbling about ministerial salaries.

Of course, either of these options might have set unwelcome precedents. And it is understandable that the risk adverse would not want to trust in the people to trust them. Or they could be dismissed as mere posturing or wayang, ignoring how theatre and ritual are important tools in the repertoire of political communication - not just what you say but also how you say it, when you say it and who says it. Such actions would not assuage all Singaporeans, some Singaporeans might even see them as excessive, but surely such gestures would go a long way in assuaging other Singaporeans' anger, an anger that could be driven by a great affective divide, by incommensurability but also, I hazard to guess, by fear. And this fear is what makes the Mas Selamat escape different from the above Mindef case; I am afraid of what plans Mas Selamat may be able to put into motion while he is still at large.

Fear and Loathing in Singapore

Mas Selamat is known to have discussed with Hambali [who planned the 2002 Bali bombings] and others to retaliate against the Singapore Government for the disruption of JI, including a plan to hijack a US, British or Singapore plane and crash it into Changi Airport.
(JI White Paper, p17)

Ironically some of us are fearful precisely we have believed everything the government has told us before; we have accepted the warnings, that Singaporeans are constantly threatened by terrorism, the Jemaah Islamiyah plot was a real threat and that, as Singapore JI leader, Mas Selamat was the most dangerous of the lot. If we thought that the government was exaggerating or making stuff up, there wouldn't be half as much a fuss over his escape.

He has already been described as plotting revenge against Singapore and we have been told that he has been seeking the means:

...terrorists are using explosive precursors like ammonium nitrate as substitutes for explosives. Palestinian terrorists started using these in the 1990s when controls on access to conventional explosives were tightened. The local Jemaah Islamiyah network that ISD disrupted in 2001 and 2002 had planned to procure 17 tonnes of ammonium nitrate for the manufacture of truck bombs to carry out attacks in Singapore. [Emphasis added.] Overseas, the Jemaah Islamiyah successfully used explosive precursors, nitrate-based chemicals and potassium chlorate mixtures respectively, to carry out the Bali and Jakarta Marriot bombings in Indonesia. The seizure of large quantities of ammonium nitrate in London in March 2004 and the theft of 1,200 kilograms of the same material from storage facilities in France in May 2004 highlight the need for control over explosive precursors. The foiled UK airline plot, with the intended use of such precursors, uncovered in August 2006 further reinforces the need to control explosive precursors in Singapore.
Mr Wong Kan Seng, on the Arms and Explosives (Amendment) Bill (Hansard, 22 Jan 2007)

I don't know about you but I found that pretty scary. It was a fear that had been managed by swallowing our reservations about the necessary evil of detention without trial under the Internal Security Act and putting our faith in the Internal Security Department.

How do you measure the efficacy of ISD? Although there are some aspects of its work which may be open to quantitative output measures, the efficacy of an internal security agency ultimately rests on a qualitative judgement of whether it is effective in meeting its mission of keeping the country and its people safe from security threats. The record speaks for itself.
Response given by the Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Wong Kan Seng, at the Committee of Supply Debate on the Ministry of Home Affairs, Fri 14 March 2003

Alas the record does speak but we're not really liking what we're hearing. And also things have been getting somewhat confusing. Mas Selamat very dangerous therefore must lock up without trial. Mas Selamat escape, what to do? And earlier we believed in the government in general and the ISD in particular to keep us safe, we are now told that we are complacent because we believed in government and ISD. Huh, liddat oso my fault?

Gerald is absolutely right that we tend to be forgetful. Most of us, through active support or tacit consent or sheer inertia/apathy, will be complicit in the PAP's big thumping victory in the next General Election and the cycle of complacency continues. OH SHI-, so it *is* true! It is my fault after all.

But perhaps the internet, not just bloggers, but the state's own online archives serve as a potent inevitably public external memory enhancement device. I only hope that the right people learn the right lessons from this fiasco. But somehow the lack of contrition and the almost casual, complacent dismissal of the anxious outcry only seems to further fuel such anxiety that nothing will really change.

Two Milestones on the Road

Two somewhat less downbeat notes to conclude. First, due to the potential impact on inter-ethnic and community relations of the JI case, MHA has been relatively transparent and forthcoming with information and updates (see Appendix below) in a way that does not apply to the other invisible 26 other people who were still in detention under the ISA as of 9 April 2007 (Hansard). I hope that such updates will continue and be expanded other ISA cases as far as prudently possible.

They had taken part in terrorist training, armed jihad and terrorist planning for attacks in Singapore. They had been deeply indoctrinated with the JI's violent and radical ideology for many years. This cannot be easily undone. For example, several of them continue to hold on to the core JI belief that Muslims and non-Muslims cannot live in harmony. They also believe in the establishment of an Islamic state through violent means. Rehabilitation, including religious counselling, for these detainees is on-going. Their cases are regularly reviewed.
Update on Jemaah Islamiyah detainees by Mr Wong Kan Seng (Hansard, 9 April 2007)

Second while it seems religious counselling have not been effective with Mas Selamat, such efforts have also been attempted in Egypt and Indonesia (See, for example, 'A jihadist recants' and 'Preachers to the converted', The Economist, 13 December 2007). More work and cooperation in this direction could hold great promise in de-radicalizing the radicalized and in the wider war for hearts and minds.

Appendix: Chronology of the Jemaah Islamiyah case

04 January 2003: Minister for Home Affairs' Comments on Why the White Paper
07 February 2003: Mas Selamat Kastari detention by Indonesian authorities announced
18 December 2003: Muhammad Arif Bin Naharudin and Muhammad Amin Bin Mohamed Yunos detained
10 June 2003: Arifin bin Ali @ John Wong detained
14 Jan 2004: Restriction Orders issued against 12 - Abu Bakar Sedek bin Hashim, Mohammad bin Hashim, Mohd Ashikin bin Mohd Yusof, Jasmani bin Bakran, Zainodin bin Ismail, Hamim bin Jaafar, Omar bin Abdul Karim, Yusri bin Mohd Yusof, Mohd Yusuf bin Mohd Noor and Mohd Shafiee bin Osman allegedly from JI; Abdul Ghani bin Omar and Mohd Abdul Rahman bin Baharom allegedly from MILF.
13 January 2005: Released - Othman bin Mohamed; Detention extended - Mohd Aslam bin Yar Ali Khan; Detained - Mohd Agus bin Ahmad Selani, Anis bin Mohamed Mansor.
22 April 2005: Released under SD: Abdul Majid s/o Niaz Mohamed; Released under SD/RO: Faisel bin Abdullah Abdat; Detained: Jahpar bin Osman.
11 November 2005: Released under SD: Andrew Gerard @ Ali Ridhaa bin Abdullah; Detained - Mohammad Sharif bin Rahmat.
06 February 2006: Mas Selamat deported to Singapore from Indonesia.
30 June 2006: Released - Azman bin Jalani, Faiz Abdullah Ashiblie, Habibullah s/o Hameed, Zulkifli bin Mohamed Jaffar and Faiz bin Abu Bakar Bafana; Detained - Detention of 5 JI Mas Selamat bin Kastari, Mohamed Rashid bin Zainal Abidin, Muhamad Ismail bin Anuwarul, Abdul Rashid bin Anwarul, and Abdul Nassir bin Anwarul.
09 November 2006: Released under RO - Muhammad Arif bin Naharudin and Muhammad Amin bin Mohamed Yunos.
08 June 2007: Detained - Abdul Basheer s/o Abdul Kader, Ishak s/o Mohamed Noohu, Mohamed Hussain bin Saynudin, Mohamed Yassin s/o O P Mohamed Nooh, Ibrahim bin Mohd Noor; RO issued against Muhamad Yassin Khan bin Muhamad Yunos, Jamil bin Ansani; released under SD - Mohamed Noor bin Sulaimi, Naharudin bin Sabtu, Nordin bin Parman and Syed Ibrahim and Mohamed Yassin s/o O P Mohamed Nooh.
24 January 2008: Released - Adnan bin Musa, Fathi Abu Bakar Bafana, Halim bin Hussain and Mohamad Anuar bin Margono; RO lapsed - Abu Bakar Sedek bin Hashim, Mohamed Yusuf bin Mohamad Noor, Mohammad bin Hashim, Mohd Abdul Rahman bin Baharom and Mohd Shafiee bin Osman; Deetained - Muhammad Zamri bin Abdullah, Maksham bin Mohd Shah; RO issued against Mohammad Taufik bin Andjah Asmara.
27 February 2008: Mas Selamat escape announced

Beyond the Self Preservation Society: From Domestic to Transnational Pandemic Preparedness

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:01:39 +0800

The shocking assassination of Benazir Bhutto was not the only news of global significance to come out of Pakistan in the final days of 2007; the World Health Organization reported that the first ever case of human infection by the H5N1 avian flu virus had been confirmed in Peshawar.

Last week's World Health Day has its focus is on protecting health from climate change. However this post revisits the still current (but out of the news cycle) theme of World Health Day 2007 - international health security. It gives a broad overview of the current state of preparedness against the threat of pandemic disease. It then goes on to suggest that while progress has been made at the level of individual states, more can be done to enhance an overlooked aspect: going beyond coordination and moving towards the building of a transnational element into domestic preparedness programs.

Current State of Preparedness

It is unsurprising that the state of preparedness varies widely across the many nation-states of the world; it is also unsurprising that wealthier states are better prepared in all aspects, ranging from planning to pharmaceutical stockpiling, from public health infrastructure to nationally integrated continuity and rapid response systems. The World Bank-UNSIC Third Global Progress Report on Avian Flu Activities & State of Pandemic Preparedness (PDF) as well as the WHO's Dr David Nabarro (The Global State of Influenza Pandemic Preparedness, 10 Jan 2008) have noted these trends, acknowledge that progress has been made, collated best practices and lessons learnt thus far as well as identified priorities such as keeping a close eye on animal to human infection.

Borderless Threat, National Programs

Last year PM Lee spoke about the need for greater cooperation and collaboration, more openness and transparency, as well as translating actions into words. Key areas would include monitoring, vaccine research, stockpiles of anti-viral drugs and other pharmaceutical equipment, working more closely with the veterinary and agricultural sectors.

Numerous nationally-based but internationally accessible monitoring systems have been put in place. And collaboration on vaccine research made the news made the news more for problems (such as the Indonesian case) in collaboration than progress (Pandemic Influenza Vaccines Workshop Report, PDF, Jan 2007). ASEAN continues to make many fine declarations that have, so far, been little more than the usual aspirational banalities (de)coupled with little concrete action.

Preparing Domestically, Conflicting Internationally

The core worry of this post is not just the depressing lack of positive concrete international coordination but how domestic preparedness/rapid response programs can actually interfere with each other. One example is how the rush by developed Western countries to stockpile vaccines and anti-virals, such as tamiflu, has meant that, until about last year, Roche had difficulty keeping up supply and that poorer states were relegated to the back of the queue.

Another area that does not get much press coverage is the relatively unglamorous but essential supply of non-vaccine/anti-viral medical supplies - thermometers, N95 respirator masks, surgical gowns and so on. Due to the spread of Just In Time inventory management, many states do not hold large inventories of these items even if they do not have the manufacturing capabilities to produce them. Lobbying for US federal legislation (and funding) for maintaining domestic manufacturing capacity of such products, the Coalition for Breathing Safety noted: 'The [2003] experience with SARS showed that countries will embargo exports of respirator masks in the case of a global pandemic.' Some of us might remember the miserable scramble for masks and thermometers in the early days of the crisis.

During the discussion that followed Prof Barry Kellman's IISS presentation (related post), this topic came up. Prof Kellman recounted how he was horrified to hear senior US legislators declare that not a single iota of vaccine, anti-virals or essential medical protection equipment would be allowed out of the US. He described this type of thinking as short-sighted and stupid, ignoring how disease does not respect borders and the best way to protect public health was to stop infections at the locality of the initial outbreak.

In a similar vein, Prof Ann Marie Kimball observed: 'Countries with relatively poor economies, such as Indonesia, do not have the capacity to stockpile antiviral as do wealthier countries, such as Singapore. Experience has shown, however, that with transborder traffic flu quickly spreads to all economies if not controlled effectively at the primary site of transmission.' [1]

Transnational Pandemic Preparedness

Thus a transnational component for domestic preparedness programs could play an important part for domestic as well as international health security. Preparations could be made to designate portions of vaccines, drugs, medical supplies stockpiles as well as teams of skilled personnel for rapid deployment to help contain serious outbreaks in the region. The experience of Ops Flying Eagle in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami could be instructive in some respects although any assistance would be more effective if there were stronger information-sharing, planning and coordination processes in place before hand.

I am troubled by the possibility of creating moral hazard but suspect that the fact that aid transfers between sovereign states is not unconditional may act as a sufficient deterrent. Preparing for and managing response to pandemic disease within one state is already a huge challenge [2], working to prepare and manage a pandemic crises between two or more states will be even more difficult. But the hope of this post is that such preparations will get underway soon - When the going gets tough, the tough get a bloomin' move on!

References

[1] Ann Marie Kimball, 'When the Flu Comes: Political and Economic Risks of Pandemic Disease in Asia' in Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills (ed), Strategic Asia 2006-07: Trade, Interdependence and Security (Washington D.C.: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2006), 385.

[2] Barry Kellman, Bioviolence: Preventing Biological Terror and Crime, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 168-84. Key decision points include the hows and whens of compulsory vaccination for first responders, placement of victims, stockpiling and disbursement of stockpiles, compulsory medical interventions such as quarantine zones.

Dansong's Angle Ticker: Patronage Politics, Cancer Nannies, Aesthetic Snake Oils

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:33:04 +0800

Political change beckons up north after the earthquake of an election that is reconfiguring Malaysia in more ways than one. Many would laud it as democratization; I hope it is. But here, I offer a different interpretation, partly because I am deep into writing something academic on this topic: the seismic shifting is a reconfiguration of patronage politics not democratization. Back home, two recent controversies, by Singapore standards, as the limping suspense of the escaped terrorist turns into a somewhat blasé wait for the report of the commission of inquiry, one concerning cancer research funding and the other concerning the regulation of beauty treatments by medical doctors. Yawn, perhaps they still hold some lessons?

Patronage Politics, Unusually Usual

A nice summary of Malaysian PM Abdullah Badawi's troubles appeared in the Straits Times on Friday (28/3/08, p. 6), anchored by a photo of a pensive and tired-looking Pak Lah, headlined with his resolution, "I'm not going to run away". His first trouble is "assertive sultans", as the Perlis and Terengganu rulers rejected the PM's choice of Menteri Besar and got their way of putting their preferred candidate in office. Next is "empowered opposition", with the motley crew of PAS, DAP and PKR testing the waters with vote of no confidence musings and talk of defections of UMNO-allied parliamentarians, particularly those in the far periphery of Sabah and Sarawak. The third is "UMNO infighting", with bristles from the Mahathir faction and the schismatic Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah to the unsettled grassroots rank-and-file. The last is "cabinet woes", as a third deputy minister resigns, of course, for "a very private reason". The first two said they had held those positions for too long.

Underlying these four problems could be a recalibration process of Malaysia's patronage politics, which some scholars have termed as "neo-patrimonial". Very briefly, patrimonialism refers to the traditional rule of a chief or a prince over a group of people through personal ties in which the chief offers some form of security (physical or economic) in exchange for the loyalty of the people and surplus resources produced by them. Neo-patrimonialism refers to the mixing of this traditional rule with modern political and economic institutions.

Once upon time, Suharto's regime in Indonesia was studied as an exemplary neo-patrimonial state, where lucrative government business contracts and subsidies, mining and forestry licenses, land titles and plum jobs cascaded down from the chief patron down the party-government hierarchies, from patron to client who is patron to another client until it reaches the ground of the hapless laborer or peasant, securing a stable net of captured loyalties. In such a situation, formal democratic elections are political struggles between rival patrons and political parties with formidable political ideologies favoring the hapless masses strangely fail to get much support. Interestingly, perhaps ST is discovering a spirit of irony, but more likely it is pure coincidence, a ghostly image of Suharto hovers over the page as a leader to a story of him being cleared of graft charges.

So what happened in Malaysia? A new multiracial generation of voters who are plugged into the new economy and new media and autonomous from old patronage system in Malaysia seemed to swing the elections to the progressive modernism represented by Anwar's PKR. That is why the epicenter of the earthquake took place in ultra-modern Perak and Selangor, while the swings in Penang and Kelantan still have the more parochial ethnic-political feel to them, i.e., voters choosing a different patron.

What this has done is to cause everyone in the old patronage system to reevaluate their ties and positions. The sultans, long neglected in the UMNO patronage system and pushed aside rather brusquely by Mahathir, are looking to recover their even older patrimonial powers and privileges, in what minimally constitutional way they can. Within UMNO, rival patrons are starting to jostle to replace the existing ones and loyalty suddenly becomes a currency. At the very top, the Mahathir faction represents the business elites in the party who had been targeted by Abdullah's abortive anti-graft campaign, while Tengku Razaleigh represents the old aristocratic bureaucrats pushed aside by Mahathir making their perpetual comeback. In the middle, the horse-trading over loyalties has begun; cabinet resignations are just the tip of the iceberg. Rumors of negotiations of defections make the opposition suspect, and the earlier infighting among the three parties over the state government positions also suggest that patronage horse-trading as usual is taking place. Is the opposition merely creating an alternative patronage system to replace the old one?

Unless Anwar's PKR can emerge as the dominant opposition party, I fear this is inevitable in an alliance of three equally balanced parties and when two of the three are built on alternative ethnic-patronage systems. Expanding the PKR by horse-trading for defections would not be the way to go, but there are very few options for Anwer to grow the PKR into a non-patronage-based modern political party, because of the entrenched neo-patrimonial relations between political office and control of economic resources in Malaysia. That's the limits of democratization in all Southeast Asian countries, Singapore included.

Cancer Nannies

A hint of a controversy as AStar (yes, I refuse to use the asterisk) abruptly shut down its Singapore Cancer Syndicate which had funded $75 million dollars worth of cancer research projects, one month ago (ST, 28/3/08, p. H2). The Syndicate's scientific advisory board was not even told of it until they flew here for its annual meeting on February 27. Then on Monday (March 24), 50 scientists with Syndicate-funded projects turned up to appeal the decision. AStar explained that other funding avenues are now available since the Syndicate was launched in 2002, though the aggrieved scientists protested that the Syndicate also operated as a crucial central body that nurtured promising researchers and coordinated the research. One said that dissolution of the Syndicate "could lead to factionalisation and a turf mentality", another complained of the difficulty of getting fresh grants for his project from another source, and all who spoke to ST declined to be identified "for fear of jeopardizing alternative funding opportunities".

I am not impressed. Our system is supposed to be meritocratic not patronage-based. I read "factionalisation and a turf mentality" as free competition, and I don't understand why it would be difficult to get fresh grants for an existing project if a project has strong merits and the track record of being funded by AStar for its merits. What I don't understand the most is why scientists want to be remain anonymous when making what they purport to be reasonable arguments. If your arguments are reasonable and your projects have merit, why worry about jeopardizing alternative funding? Only if we are operating on a patronage system, where one's loyalty to the patrons and would-be patrons and obedience quotient have to be maintained. Well, it is good then that AStar has shut down the Syndicate, since it seems to be promoting a very unhealthy patronage and dependent mentality among local scientists, who now need to mature from being over-feted by the nanny techno-state into globally competitive researchers. The very day of the ST report, PM Lee announced the establishment of the Cancer Research Centre for Excellence with $256 million funding to be headed by a Harvard Medical School don (29/3/08, p. 1). There you go, it's getting competitive, let's start doing meritocracy.

Aesthetic Snake Oils

Oh, the Singapore Medical Association attacks the ST for repeating the term "snake oil", used by a senior Health Ministry official to refer to aesthetic treatments by doctors (24/3/08, p. H1), as "insensitive" and calls for "more constructive reporting" (27/3/08, p. H11). If doctors are doing the right thing and not selling snake oil, then why are they are so "thin skin" about this? The Association's professional reputation has gone down a number of notches for me with this prickly letter. In the same letter, the Association lauds the clarification made by the Health Minister that his ministry is not banning the scientifically unproven treatments (25/3/08, p. H1), but is emphasizing "self-regulation of aesthetic practices by professional bodies". So, the College of Family Physicians and Academy of Medicine will draw up guidelines for self-regulation, while the Health Ministry seems to have backtracked.

Now, exactly what is this self-regulation? If it involves the mere drawing up of guidelines to send to all doctors as ethical frameworks to follow, then it is doomed to failure because there is no moral or economic incentive for doctors to follow the guidelines. The Association writes in that prickly letter, "Doctors understand that with great powers and trust vested in them by the public, come greater responsibility and accountability". Wait! What if the same public demand aesthetic services and are willing to carry the moral burden and pay a financial premium (yes, people can be irrational when it comes to their sense of body inadequacy)?

MP Lam Pin Min, member of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Health, a doctor himself, weighs in and says the use of term "snake oil" is not fair, "Our final clinical decision and recommendation is a combination of research evidence, clinical expertise and patient preference" (ST 25/3/08, p. H1). Dear Dr Lam, take note of the order of your combination, which is the right order of priority: patient preference is last and least and research evidence is paramount. And the crux of this issue here is precisely that the treatments in question here lack scientific evidence that they work, so they are snake oils until they can be proven to be medicine. I think Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan is too politic, and I support the Health Ministry senior director for health regulations who said doctors would be "asked to stop procedures unless they can provide scientific evidence that these treatments work". The public trust in doctors in not rooted in their "great powers" but in the science that their medical practice is founded upon. If I want "great powers", I will go to a spirit medium with much cheaper snake oils.

Beyond Obamania in Singapore - Change You Can Believe In

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:32:40 +0800

The rise of Singaporeans' fervor for Barack Obama, one of the two nominees for the Democratic Party in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, has captured the attention of the mainstream newspapers in Singapore. In the ST Mar 23 article entitled 'Obama fever hits young Singaporeans', Professor Singh suggests that "Singaporeans pay such great attention to American politics because of its supposed contrast to the more predictable politics here [in Singapore]?" Did MP Sim Boon Ann hit the proverbial nail when he remarked that "interest in US politics originates mainly because it is a superpower and is fashionable, much like English Premier League football?" Are Aaron Ng's, a fellow SA blogger, comments' prevalent among Singaporeans when he mentioned that "he's [Obama is] attractive because he flies in the face of norms like experience and age that Singaporeans are used to?"

Yet when Mr. Sim argues that the interests in US politics is merely a political fashion of the here and now, would he also similarly argue that in the past US elections, young Singaporeans and Singaporeans in general were not interested in the coming and goings of the campaign? Did John Kerry, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan not fill the discourses of newspapers reports and columns, debate topics in schools, coffeeshop talk of the body politic? Would one deduce a sense of irony in the MP's words - that a support or interests for politics (including Singapore?) is merely a fashion of the times?

The ST article also suggests that the Obama phenomenon is decidedly localized - that the image of Obama has been appropriated and reproduced for people agitating for change in some forms of the political status quo. To some extent, that appears to be true. The coupling of discourse such as "flying in the norms of experience and age" and "inspirational speeches" might suggest that one's support for parties in Singapore depends largely on one's views on the former while neglecting the latter aspects of leadership.

Most of the Singaporeans interviewed in the ST article appeared to be young, college- educated and to some extent politically liberal or independent as defined by contemporary political lexicon in America. Similarity, young, university-educated and independent American voters 3000 miles away have also strongly supported Obama in this race for the Democratic nominee. The transnational yearning for a change in political status quo have manifested itself in the formative "Obamaic" discourse of "post-racial", "charismatic," "change you can believe in" or in Governor Bill Richardson, former Democratic nominee and the governor of New Mexico, "a once-in-a-lifetime leader."

Yet, an underbelly threatens this semi-utopic support for Obama, in which his critics have called "blind faith." The persistent issues of the Rezko scandal, Obama's alleged surrogates' assurance to the Canadian government that anti-NAFTA talk is simply "election talk", a key advisor calling Clinton a "monster" and the difficulty in persuading the American public against the media's harping on his Pastor issue suggests that a "post-politics" candidate might not be so easily formulated. Hillary Clinton's emerging statistical leads in the polls suggest that the Obama "movement" does possess some internal contradictions that might be exploited by the Republican party if he becomes the nominee.

Young Singaporeans supporting Obama may have held on to the powerful contemporary myths of their own - that a post-racial, handsome, Harvard-law trained, political and social liberal, protectionist and inspirational candidate will ride on a modest Nissan to save Singapore politics from the "same-old" people and ideas. How realistic is such a vision though?

Perhaps ironically, they should pay attention to the other two candidates, who are considered the "same-old" politicians, for a more realistic change in the status quo. John McCain, the senior from Arizona and Vietnam-war candidate, has stood firm on his moderate beliefs on immigration, global climate change and the war in Iraq. He denounced waterboarding as a legitimate tool for interrogation against detainees of the war against terror, deeming it as a form of "torture" while most of his Republican opponents as well as President Bush supported such a tool. (Although just two days ago, he was criticized for his position to support Bush's veto against legislation to prevent waterboarding) He maintained strong support for free trade despite this issue becoming more sensitive with increasing number of American voters. He has received scathing criticisms from highly influential conservative commentators, from Rush Limbaugh to Ann Coulter, and the latter has said (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) she will support Hillary Clinton if John McCain wins the Republican nominee. Yet McCain seemed to have stood firm in face of great political difficulties within his own party. By no means is he a perfect candidate - his support for a long term presence in Iraq, his increasingly hostility towards the issue of abortion and civil unions to seek the religious right approval and his relatively weaker fundraising abilities may threaten to derail the path of the Straight Talk Express to the White House.

Hillary Clinton is more inspirational and significant that she appears to young people in America and Singapore. Her excellent education at Wellesley (including being her own speaker at her own commencement) and Yale Law school as well as a cultivation of a perceptive ear throughout her life have allowed her to have a good grasp of policy issues and to do well in the campaigning trail. She and her advisers devised specific economic plans for each individual states, allowing her to become relevant to the people she is seeking her mandate from. Her performances during debates frequently draw upon her specifics of her economic plans and she is widely acknowledged to have done well in all the debates. Moreover, she is the only candidate that supports universal health care in America, in a country where more than 15 million Americans are uninsured.

Just as McCain is not a perfect candidate, Clinton's surrogates might seriously threaten her white house bid. The recent Ferraro saga suggests that her own ship might not be as tight as she made out to be. Moreover, Clinton's past experiences (or failures) with health care policies as the first lady might lead people to question her competence in bridging political divides to get things done as a President.

Yet, the strongest lesson we can learn from Hillary Clinton is her perseverance and quiet confidence. She hardly flinched when Clinton detractors in a rally made a sexist remark by saying "Iron my shirt!" and when Obama said "you [Clinton] are likable enough" in one of their numerous debates. Despite critics and polls writing her off after her third place finish in Iowa, she came back to win New Hampshire strongly. When most pundits were calling for her to quit the race after Obama's ten straight wins after Super Tuesday, she refused to be beaten down and won Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island by focusing on economic issues, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Some elements of a strong leader would draw upon all three candidates including the ability for that leader to stand resolute in the midst of strong factional winds, to persevere and to draw upon one's confidence and abilities despite impounding odds, and to deliver inspirational speeches in front of skeptical crowds to bridge the most pressing social divides of the day. Yet, just as some Americans are looking at each candidates closely, I wonder if young Singaporeans could also look beyond Obama to explore the values and decisions of the other two serious contenders for the U.S. presidency. In addition, could we also reflect more deeply on the values we want from our own political and social leaders? The values of perseverance, competence and resoluteness are neither as glamorous nor as emotional as the value of delivering inspirational speech. However, they are equally valuable to voters. One should also stop and ask the corollary questions to the contemporary American electoral phenomena, "Did Winston Churchill popularity as a leader increased during World War II because of his competence as a political leader or his famous quotes on "blood, toil and sweat" that inspired the British people when the previous P.M. could not?" "What about Churchill's subsequent loss to the Labor party after the war?"

[Photo Credit: Associated Press]

Preventing a Bioagent Great Escape

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:10:37 +0800

Nuclear power is considered a non-starter and a radioactive-hot potato for Singapore. Official and popular thinking about nuclear power seems to conform the precepts of Normal Accident Theory, that is, it is such a complex technology that an accident is almost inevitable and the consequences will be devastating. On the other hand, the attitude of the authorities and populus towards biotechnology and 'life sciences' seems more in line with a group of Berkeley scholars' High Reliability Theory who argue that complex organizations can be 'astonishingly reliable' if they possess the correct prerequisites. [1] However, the growing consensus among researchers and security analysts is closer to the predictions of NAT than HRT; a common thread in their warnings is that many biotechnologies are innately dual-use and proliferating at a high speed. [2]

This post concentrates on the threat from cock-up rather than the threat from conspiracy; that is, its focus is on the risks of accidental release of harmful bioagents from bio-science laboratories rather than the threat of bio-terrorism. It goes on to pose some questions about the agencies and systems in place to deal with the risks of accidental lab release and concludes by drawing on recent work by Prof Barry Kellman (above left, speaking at the IISS's 'Confronting the Threat of Bioviolence' seminar on 5 Dec 2007) and Prof Andreas Wenger on preventing a biological agent great escape.

Historical Precedents

Two prominent cases of accidental exposure to hazardous biological agents in the UK were due to lapses in bio-security in research laboratories. The first case in question occurred in 1978, a medical photographer, Janet Parker, died as a result of exposure to smallpox at the University of Birmingham Medical School. Prof Henry S. Bedson, who was in charge of the smallpox research program, committed suicide a month later. His note read, 'I am sorry to have misplaced the trust which so many of my friends have placed in me and my work.' Twelve years before, another medical photographer from the Anatomy Department had started a chain of infection extending to almost 50 people but no fatalities resulted due to it being caused by a weaker strain of the disease. After the global eradication of smallpox was certified in 1980, inoculation programs were no longer carried out and, as a result, people born after this period do not have immunity against it. Samples continued to held at various laboratories, the knowledge and technology even exists to bring the disease 'back to life' without recourse to organic samples.

In the second prominent case, a leak from the Institute of Animal Health in Pirbright, Surrey led to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease which has serious implications on food security and the system of livestock movement on which the agro-industry relies on to maintain reliable supplies. [Addendum: Also see a BBC news report on the release of the UK government's report on the Pirbright incident, PDF]

Data from the US is more sparse. Wenger notes tersely (and without supporting citation): 'Since 1980, five people have been killed by bioterrorism attacks - all in 2001 and all presumably involving anthrax spores from US military laboratories.' [3]

Golden Eggs Cooking Our Own Goose?

Internationally, life sciences research has been made great strides in many useful and worthy areas such as improving immunity to influenza or a universal flu vaccine; in Singapore, it has been cultivated as another engine of economic growth.

However the creation of a 'safe' Ebola virus for research reminds us that it is not only dual use but also dual direction. Adverse, dangerous changes can be unwitting, accidental, may not realize until it is too late. Such changes include:

1. Safer handling and deployment of still dangerous agents;
2. Easier propagation and/or distribution;
3. Improved ability to target the host;
4. Greater transmissivity, infectivity;
5. More difficulty in detection;
6. Greater toxicity, more difficulty in combating;
7. More (self-limiting, self-enhancing...) [4]

An alternative and overlapping list includes:

1. Experiments that would demonstrate how to render a vaccine ineffective;
2. Experiments that would confer resistance to therapeutically useful antibiotics or antiviral agents;
3. Experiments that would enhance the virulence of a pathogen or render a non-pathogen virulent;
4. Experiments that would increase the transmissibility of a pathogen;
5. Experiments that would alter the host range of a pathogen;
6. Experiments that would enable the evasion of diagnostic/detection modalities and
7. Experiments that would enable the weaponization of a biological agent or toxin. [5]

Given my extremely limited knowledge about the life sciences, I am unable to assess the risks, to public health in the event of a bio-safety breach, of, for example, SIgN research into the immunology of cancer, autoimmunity/immune deficiency, infectious disease immunology, system immunology or translational and clinical research (TCR).

Questions about Agencies and Structures

I know very very little about which agencies are the frontline/day-to-day regulators or who is ultimately responsible for ensuring that bio-safety regulations are adhered to - so this section parades my ignorance as well as my curiosity; it would be much appreciated if readers in the know could enlighten me - but without breaching any laws, rules and regulations or professional ethics please.

My guess is that the legal framework is provided, to some extent, by the Biological Agents and Toxins Act and one of the key agencies would be the Bio-Safety Branch, Operations Group, Ministry of Health HQ. Again, I do not know how much manpower and budgetary resources that the Bio-Safety Branch or any other regulator has been allocated.

Other questions relevant to the context of this post include: Does the Bio-Safety Branch or another agency maintain a registry of ongoing bio-science research programs? Or have input in vetting biotech R&D projects that A*Star brings in? Does it have the powers to conduct surprise mandatory inspections? If so, what has been the compliance rate? Or are researchers only subject to self-regulation according to a voluntary code of conduct which the MOH playing an advisory role? If there is a crisis, at what point does the issue get taken up outside of MOH jurisdiction to be subsumed under the National Security coordination structure or involvement of subject matter experts from other ministries such as the role played by the SAF's HQ Medical Corps during the SARS epidemic or the future possible involvement of the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Explosives (CBRE) Defence Group in a non-terrorist incident?

Some Lines of Defence

While this post concentrates on highlighting possible risk, it is also mindful of Wenger's warning on the dangers of over-reaction, particularly in framing the debate solely in NAT's catastrophic failure terms. First, it may increase terrorist interest in acquiring such capability. Second, the expansion of biosecurity measures may increase inadvertent diffusion of knowledge and abilities that are required to undermine them. Third, obsession with worst case scenarios creates huge opportunity costs and the resulting securitization may impede legitimate internationally coordination and sharing of life science research. [6]

Nonetheless Wenger acknowledges that there is a need to manage the threat of bioterrorism more generally and for better institutional oversight and accountability in research labs and the private sector - the focus of this post being on the latter. I now turn to Kellman's more specific discussion of policy regarding codes of conduct, translucency, bio-scientists as the first line of defence.

Self-regulation and voluntary codes of conduct would be the most attractive from the point of view of researchers and corporations. It also creates less work for government agencies. However Kellman points out that the current situation with such codes have 'inherent structural flaws'. He argues that definitions of dangerous research needs to be globally uniform in the context of universal participation prevent a race to the bottom. The codes need to be legally enforceable with appropriate sanctions and verification mechanisms to ensure meaningful compliance. Using a wonderful dairy product analogy, Kellman argues that 'ethical declarations that lack capacity to internationally manage risks inevitably create something of a Swiss cheese of protections... From the prevention perspective, as science evolves, the presence of cheese in some places becomes less important than the holes in others.' [7] Will Singapore, once again, be able to act as a norm leader and entrepreneur in the drafting of a global code in the inspirational mold of Ambassador Tommy Koh and his team during the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea conference III?

Kellman also proposes a compromise between transparency (to compel accountability) and opacity (to protect proprietary and privacy interests) which he terms translucency. He differentiates between the fact versus the content of research, arguing that only the 'location and basic purpose not its methodology and results... should be disclosed' so that attention can be concentrated on ensuring adequate biosecurity measures are taken with respect to research with serious bioviolence risks.[8] Of course, implementing this on an worldwide, internationally coordinated and non-intrusive way will be a huge challenge but the principle looks sound from my layman perspective.

A key set of measures involves frontline practitioners - the bioscience researchers. Kellman advocates fostering strong ethical and safety awareness through institutional mechanisms in a highly competitive and pressuring field. Such mechanisms include as monitoring by research advisers and committees as well as ensuring that the highest standards in ethics and safety all the way from research design to publication of results; that they are an integral part of a rigorous research program and not a merely 'good to have'.

Another key mechanisms is professional certification along the lines of the professions of medicine and law. Kellman criticizes the US Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) and the FBI's Security Risk Assessment (SRA) initiative as poorly designed and even possibly counter-productive. It is argued that increased formal professionalization, with the coalescing of professional knowledge and norms, will help ward off clumsy, heavy-handed state intervention. With Singapore's great love affair of paper certification, this would not entail a huge cultural change.

However that might not be the case for the third and final recommendation. It is noted that scientists are the people who have the means and the motive to detect and report misconduct, faulty measures or procedures, near-misses and actual incidents. The US Commission on Research Integrity's recommendations on a Whisteblower's Bill of Rights [now established the Office of Research Integrity?] are cited in favour of measures that 'strengthen whistleblower protection by encouraging institutions to treat whistleblowers fairly, protect them from retaliation, and to articulate the responsibilities one incurs when accusing another of misconduct.' [9]

Conclusion

If scientists want to have a bigger say in running their own affairs rather than to have state agencies breathing down their necks all the time, then a substantial professional commitment, of professional responsibility - incorporating research ethics, certification and whistleblowing - needs to be put onto the agenda and implemented with the cooperation of the relevant stakeholders. A worst case scenario could be that scientists wait for the gahmen, the gahmen waits for international harmonization, only for a serious breach to take place in the meantime, leading to the imposition of heavyhanded wayang type action-action by the authorities in the wake of a hysterical moral panic, diminished support by the wider population and severe damage to Singapore's biotech hub ambitions.

References

[1] Todd LaPorte and Paula Consolinin, 'Working in Practice but Not in Theory: Theoretical Challenges of "High Reliability Organizations,"' Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol.1 No.1 (Jan 1991), 43.

[2] See, for example, Gregory Koblentz, 'Pathogens as Weapons: The International Security Implications of Biological Warfare', International Security, Vol.28 No.3 (Winter 2003-4), 84-122.

[3] Andreas Wenger, 'Securing Society Against the Risk of Bioterrorism' in Andreas Wenger and Reto Wollenmann (eds), Bioterrorism: Confronting a Complex Threat (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 2007), 208.

[4] Stephen M. Block, 'Living Nightmares: Biological Threats Enabled by Molecular Biology' in S.D. Drell, A.D. Sofaer, and G.D. Wilson (eds), The New Terror: Facing the Threat of Biological & Chemical Weapons, (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press: 1999), 46-7. [PDF]

[5] 'Research of Concern', National Research Council of the National Academies, Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism (2004) cited in Barry Kellman, Bioviolence: Preventing Biological Terror and Crime, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 138.

[6] Wenger, 209.

[7] Kellman, 140-2.

[8] Ibid, 142.

[9] Ibid, 146.

Dansong's Angle Ticker: Mean of Means, Private-but-not-quite-Public, Entrepreneurial Jelly Beans

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:00:00 +0800

For the last two tickers, I would froth up on the sofa spot on a Saturday night to post just past midnight. But yesterday, my Guinness stout tasted extra sweet as I saw the opposition in Malaysia turn back the BN juggernaut. My froth got quite distracted. What I like about the Malaysian elections is the maturity that is shown by both the incumbent and opposition alliance and the electorate. Indeed, I really hope, with all my heart and soul, that 13 May 1969 will not be repeated. So far, so good, with an unfazed Pak Lah saying this is what democracy is all about and not all sullen or defining this setback as a freak result as senior Singaporean politicians wont to do. So far, so good, with the trans-ethnic alliance between a Chinese-dominated DAP and Malay-dominated PAS held together by the multi-ethnic Keadilan and the charismatic Anwar father-wife-daughter combination, which has led to strange new dawns of Malaysians voting for political platforms rather than ethnic affiliations. Perhaps, the Obama effect is catching on globally; Malaysia has gone post-racial too.

Back in Singapore with white froth on my mouth, I find myself, as I read through the week's worth of newspapers, wondering whether the Singapore political scene is also changing, slowly and subtly, but definitively. I find myself somewhat out of my habitual skin, agreeing with PAP government policies, as the shuffle to the left is again evident in means testing. I believe this shuffle to the left is also showing up some private/public inconsistencies or faultlines in the socioeconomic system. And while we all shuffle leftwards, the government is conspiring again to liberate our narrow closed Singaporean minds. What a strange world.

Mean of Means

The means testing policy has finally been announced. No fanfare. I remembered that means testing was a major issue in the last general elections and the WP was milking the unpopular concept to death. Compared to the roar of the crowd in a muddy Hougang field responding to WP Low's criticism of means testing in teochew, the general silence that followed Monday's announcement by Minister Khaw was deafening. 60% of workers will get the full subsidy, 80% subsidy for Class C beds and 65% for Class B2 beds, with Medisave most likely to pick up the rest of the check (ST 4/3/08). Factor in the unemployed living in properties with annual value of $11,000 or less who will also enjoy the full subsidy, that's 80% of Singaporeans. Even those who earned above $5,200 get 65% Class C subsidy and 50% Class B2 subsidy. If this is not universal healthcare, then what is (don't give me the example of Cuba)? Furthermore, it incorporates the principle of progressive taxation, for essentially, the richer you are, the more you pay to subsidize the healthcare of the poorer.

The sliding scale of means testing is surprisingly narrow and fine, ranging from $3,200 to $5,200 monthly income, with a reduction of 1% point for every $150. I wonder whether such a fine scale is meaningful at all, or does it just fulfill some bureaucrat's numerical aesthetic sensibilities. Or maybe it is put in place to affirm the very concept of means testing, so that future governments would have the option of stretching the scale. WP Low's question of how long the government would hold to the subsidy levels is a fair one thus, while Minister Khaw's answer that the scale would be adjusted "as the economy grew and income-level profiles changed" is vague, to say the least, though Khaw promised "so let's see how we can share [the health subsidy] as fairly as we can". In other words, it seems politics would decide, which is fine by me, as I would rather Singapore be a democracy served by technocrats than the other way round.

The only substantial whimper came from NMP Siew who called for per capita family income to be used instead so that Singaporeans with dependents won't be penalized. Khaw replied it is too tedious, time-consuming and intrusive - intrusive because medical social workers would have to probe into household income and employment situation. Right, this government of ours is worried about invading our privacy. Surely, the amazing auto-inclusive IRAS database could be used to call up the data and calculate the per capita household (not family: try making sense of the ridiculous tree diagram of a three-generation family of 27 members that is the fantastical product of some journalist's fecund mind in ST Review 6/3/08) means immediately. But there is a point here, for it may be intrusive for some people and this put our tax information at risk of being circulated. Besides, I am hard-pressed to imagine a breadwinner earning $5,201, who would probably have no more than two children on the average with a working wife as is largely the case according to statistics, going broke because the 65% Class C subsidy is not enough and he forgot to buy Medishield.

There are gaps in the almost-universal healthcare system, or what Minister Khaw calls the 3Ms. The first concern is low-income self-employed and casual workers, many of them aged aunties and uncles, who are not regular or sufficient contributors to Medisave. It is hard to part with tens of dollars a month to put into a piggy bank that demands you to fill in stupefying forms to take out a cent when one earns a six-hundred-dollar salary. Perhaps the setting up of more cooperatives (ST 5/3/2008) for casual-workers would solve the problem as these cooperatives can cut out the many layers of middlemen taking a cut of the outsourcing pie. These cooperatives can bid competitively for outsource contracts and channel middlemen-profits towards medical insurance funding. Another concern is the 23 percent of Singaporeans who don't subscribe to Medishield; time perhaps to activate the grassroots for real productive work than searching for limping terrorists. The third concern is the middle-class who should top up their Medishield with private insurance riders for Class A and B1 beds; this I care insofar because when they don't get the riders to save a penny, they would have to mingle with the masses in C and B2 beds and stick their fingers into the subsidy pie, which is fine if they don't go whiney about the threadbare conditions and suspicious chicken soup while increasing the mean of healthcare costs for the rest.

Private-but-not-quite-Public

Everyone's trying to do a capitalism-with-a-happy-socialist-face nowadays. Of course, the free market seems destined to be here to stay, so is the gaping income gap. Welfare states around the world are enacting reforms to stay competitive and yet take care of citizens, Singapore not exempted. The problem arises when we have public goods but private means of provision. Take transportation in Singapore, and I am not talking about middle-class whining about ERP. I've gotten into countless arguments with my friends, all avid drivers, because I'm an anomaly of a driver who supports the COE and ERP system with complete fervor. My grouse is that the taxation of drivers is not progressive; revenues should be channeled to improving the public transportation system for the masses. But the public transportation system has already been privatized and, thus, cannot be subsidized. Or so it seems.

There is too little competition in a cozy market dominated by SMRT and SBStransit for the privatization to make sense. And thus, there is little incentive to improve efficiency. In any case, since the corporatization of government boards and companies has led to their highly efficient operation, there is little distinction between public and private in terms of efficiency. Besides, the government had determined fares with a ridiculously uncompetitive cost+x formula, thus passing the cost to commuters and giving the privatized transport companies no incentive to cut costs. As a result, the government earns from drivers, the transport companies earn from commuters. All this is going to change, as Transport Minister Raymond Lim announces the plan to introduce more competition and a new fare cap policy, with direct governmental support on transportation given to low-income families (ST 7/3/08). This will be an interesting move, albeit contradictory, to liberalize and institute price controls at the same time. I hope that that the latter doesn't scare off would-be competitors and leave us with the dancing SMRT and SBStransit duo, who then end up lobbying that the fare cap be determined by the old cost+$$ formula, so we all end up back in the limbo between NS24 and NE6.

Since I criticized the government's green energy policy a couple of weeks ago, it has been announced that the government is setting up a $20 million fund called the Solar Capability Scheme to give grants to offset the cost of integrating solar panels into new buildings attaining a certain level of Green Mark standard (Today 4/3/08). This, it seems, is as far as the government would go in terms of subsidies, and MTI Minister of State S Iswaran explicitly rejects feed-in tariffs, where the government would pay a higher price to buy surplus renewable energy compared to conventional energy. Subsidies, Minister of State Iswaran says, would "distort the market in terms of production and consumption decisions". Yes, I agree, but that's assuming we have consumption decisions in the first place; the utilities sector is the same as the transportation sector. Second, the subsidy logic for feed-in tariffs is linked to the high start-up cost of installing solar panels, which is the same logic as the Solar Capability Scheme. Besides, feed-in tariffs would make better sense than giving outright subsidy grants since it gives the government the ability, like the transportation fare cap policy, to flexibly manage the incentives for both the renewable energy producer and conventional energy producer to cut costs.

Entrepreneurial Jelly Beans

Brief thoughts on the decision to have a small liberal arts college to be affiliated with NUS or SMU rather than to have it as the fourth university, making way for a fourth varsity focused on engineering, design and business. Education Minister of State Lui Tuck Yew cites Stanford University's Institute of Design as the model (ST 5/3/08). Singapore has been looking to Stanford and Silicon Valley for quite a while now, and this caps the mimicry. Today newspaper is a bit melodramatic, its analysis by Loh Chee Kong offered the title "How to produce a Steve Jobs?" (5/3/08). Loh makes a good point by warning that the fourth varsity should not repeat the mistake of the other universities, which tend to focus on business plans to develop entrepreneurial thinking and spirit. He quotes Prof Allen Gibb on his observation that business plans "were not invented by entrepreneurs but by banks, accountants and other professional service providers". The formula, Loh argues, is entrepreneurial values + strategic thinking capacity + intuitive judgments made with limited information. The learning process is dominated by "doing, solving problems, grasping opportunities, copying from others, making mistakes and experimentation". This may very well described any inventive enterprise and ... stockmarket investment.

I'm intrigued with this Economist article here on the anomalies of otherwise efficient stockmarkets filled with rational investors seeking to make the best returns. It describes an old experiment that asks people to estimate the number of jellybeans in a jar - the average estimate is usually better than the majority of individual guesses. But when the diversity of the collective is taken over by "groupthink", then the efficient wisdom of the collective average also breaks down - when investors no longer guess the number of jellybeans but what other people's guesses might be. So, this is my counterpoint to Loh and Prof Gibb, your formula is way too complicated. The situation in Singapore is very simple and Occam's razor applies. We are not focused on the jellybeans but are always second-guessing each other's business plans concerning the jellybeans. It seems we need a diversity of educational tracks, to create a diversity of jellybean guessers, and the fourth university, a liberal arts college and a plethora of specialized schools would do the trick. But not if the graduate entrepreneurs are all hooked on getting their business plans funded by a central government agency which would then impose the groupthink. We need a liberalized venture capital market not a liberal arts college. Gosh, I don't believe I just proposed such a neoliberal view unbecoming of my left position. Alright, then slap a venture capital gains tax to fund education programs for the poor.