TR EMERITUS

I have been a StarHub subscriber since year 2000. When SingTel announced that they had secured the broadcasting rights for the EPL and ESPN, I knew I had to subscribe to Singtel mioTV in order to continue watching the EPL as I am a diehard soccer fan. To my surprise, I found out from Singtel that I had to apply for a SingTel fixed line in order to have mioTV. This is completely unacceptable. All the while, when I was a StarHub subscriber, they provided a free fixed line for me. As a Sales Manager, I have always believed that market competition will ultimately always benefit the consumer, but not in this case when Singtel is forcing consumers to pay for an extra phone line which would not be used at all. Furthermore, in The New Paper article dated 12 Oct 2009, Mr Allen Lew, CEO of Singtel said that he will not force a basic package on sports fans and not to charge them more than what they’re paying StarHub to get their sports fix on pay television and multimedia. I find his statement totally contradictory to the action Singtel is displaying today and I hope you can either reconsider your offer or at least get your CEO to publicly explain what his original statement meant.     Frankie Lim  Read More →

In a veiled referral to the international outcry over the arrest and charging of 75 year old British author Alan Shadrake for "contempt of court" in his book on the death penalty in Singapore, PAP Minister Wong Kan Seng said that "Singapore must robustly defend the integrity of the institutions of justice and law enforcement." "We must robustly defend the integrity of our institutions of justice and law enforcement when anyone maliciously attacks and undermines the public confidence and trust which have been earned over the years," he was quoted as saying in Channel News Asia. Using a household survery done in 2008 to send home his message, Mr Wong said "the police force had the highest score of 7.6 out of 10 points for public confidence and trust" followed closely by the judiciary, which scored 7.5 points and the religious institutions with 7.4 points. The results of the survey is unreliable as the Singapore media is under the tight control of the PAP. It is ranked 133th out of 175 countries in terms of press freedom by international media watchdog Reporters without Borders. As there is no independent media to check on the establishment, cases of botched police investigations and arrests are seldom reported in the mainstream media thereby giving the public an erroneous impression of the reality on the ground. Two weeks ago, a Lianhe Wanbao photo-journalist Mr Shafie Goh was handcuffed by a police officer apparently for taking photos of flooding at Upper Bukit Timah Road, sparking a massive outcry among Singaporeans. In spite of the glaring procedural lapses in the case, the matter was swept swiftly under the carpet as if nothing has happened in the hope that Singaporeans will forget about it. If Mr Wong is really confident in the professionalism and integrity of the Singapore Police Force, he should permit the setting up of an independent Public Complaint Bureau on police misconduct to allow aggrieved victims of police abuse to lodge complaints and to punish errant police officers.     Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us.  Read More →

Since TR reported on YPAP leader Jack Lin's labelling Singaporeans as "3rd class", we have received numerous emails offering leads and tips on the true identity of YPAP leader Jack Lin, which includes his pictures and sexual preference. In one of the contributed article (letter), a self-admitted Gay reader claims that he knows Jack Lin personally and that Jack Lin is also Darklord on Trevvy (Most Visited Gay & Lesbian Portal In Singapore). This claim is supported by readers who are also members of Trevvy  with many voluntarily coming forth to confirm the identify of Darklord from Trevvy to be Jack Lin, from the Joo Chiat YEC and a member of YPAP. These readers have also alleged that Jack Lin aka Darklord on Trevvy is  besides being Gay, also "arrogant, offensive, vulgar, bitchy and provocative". (YPAP leader Jack Lin is arrogant, offensive, vulgar, bitchy and provocative I invite you guys to go to the Trevvy forum page (sgboyx) and look for yourselves at some of the shockingly vulgar things that Jack Lin has said under his moniker “DarkLord” on Trevvy. If you’re insulted by his “3rd class citizen” gaffe, ha! Just wait till you read the vile stuff he has written on Trevvy. This guy has no concept of self-censorship – he proudly boasts that he is a PAP insider and resorts to bullying and personal insults should anyone dare to disagree with him. This has prompted the editor of Trevvy contacting us to clarify their stand in this matter. We reproduce below, their email in full without editing.   Message: Dear Editor of Temasek Review, It has been brought to our attention that a person claiming to be a user of Trevvy.com has written to your website anonymously to offer to “confirm” the link between Jack Lin and a certain Trevvy user, thereby verifying rumours about the person's sexuality. Please be clear that we do not support the comments of Jack Lin and it is reasonable to say that this sentiment is shared by many Trevvy.com members. Evidently, many of them who are also active readers of Temasek Review judging from the comments and contributions to your site. You have alluded to to the irrelevance of a person's sexuality in this matter in one of your articles, saying “There are loads of gay people in Singapore – why is the public interested in this one in particular and not others? Because the other gays have not gone around offending other Singaporeans and insulting them.” If the sole purpose of bringing sexuality into the picture is to cause embarrassment for the person in question, it would be a very deplorable act in itself. Here, we would like to urge self-restraint on all parties lest it sets a precedence for a witch hunt of gay and lesbian members in public service. We do not condone the actions of any Trevvy user or other third party in using Trevvy.com that will directly or indirectly perpetuate further homophobia and stigmatization of gay people in Singapore. It is not our purpose to go into lengthy debates about homosexuality but we would like to leave you with a quote from Nobel laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, “It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.”   Regards, Team Trevvy   Editor's Note: It is not the intention of TR to advocate a witch hunt of gay and lesbian members in public service and we would like to also urge self-restraint on all parties involved. We further reiterate our stand that Jack Lin's sexual preference is not an issue of contention in our articles nor it is our intention to embaress him as we have nothing against anyone being Gay.  Read More →