TR EMERITUS

Let he that is without sin among you, cast the first stone. Well, I actually have a few in my pocket. I am saving the biggest stone for last. So stay tune. But here is my first pebble. TCJ has tendered his resignation. It happened just yesterday. Yet, the reason is a layered one. You have to dig deeper to uncover it. The first release of the news left everyone stumped as to why the resignation came in a pair. Moments later, we were told that it’s not so much about his unparliamentary remark caught by the hot mic when he called Jamus a populist. He had in fact gained popularity himsef for the wrong reason this time. And you may even construe this slip of tongue as more of a pent-up vent of a man already struggling with his own demons by then. PM Lee called for the urgent press conference yesterday to shed more light on the pair; even though more heat (or questions) were generated than light. Our commander-in-chief said that the “more serious matter” is TCJ‘s “inappropriate relationship” with a fellow PAP MP Ms Cheng Li Hui. That rocked our Monday inertia away, and I think I just released my second stone. Anyway, stoned or otherwise, that‘s quite a revelation. It was completely under the parliamentary radar. None of us were any wiser, except those who knew and had kept it to themselves. It appeared to be a well-kept secret stored in a tight-lipped cabinet. Alas, as a digression, you can’t help but get the impression that the speaker’s chair is a hot seat, and not just its mic. The last speaker of the house who stepped down was Michael Palmer. He too walked that same slippery slope. But his stepping down was considered as “swift and resolute”, unlike this parliamentary pair. And here comes my biggest stone…PM Lee admitted that he found out about the affair sometime after the last GE 2020. He then counselled them in February this year. He also gave the impression that he had been counselling them throughout the three year, like a concerned father would. He said TCJ promised him in Feb this year that he would break it up. That’s about three years later. But what happened in the interim then? Well, he didn’t. I guess it was another promise broken. And in July, when the bough finally broke, which fortuitously coincided with his mic-gate, I suppose PM Lee told him enough is enough, pls hand over your resignation letter. In fact, TCJ wanted to resign in Feb, but his boss told him to give him more time to settle his constituency in the east. PM Lee said that when he found out in the last GE 2020, he didn’t even know when they had started the affair. Imagine that. This can only mean that the speaker of the house had been handling the affairs of parliament as well as his own under one whitewashed roof, and clandestinely carried out under the watchful eye of the one whose party dominated the house. I guess when the levee breaks, you have to be prepared for the rush of the tide. Our counsellor-in-chief is indeed in an unenviable position. He has his hands full just when the GE is about one or two years away. And he might be entering the electoral ring this time with one eye blocked by the investigation of his transport minister and one hand tied by the forbidden affair he had paternally kept out of sight; probably hoping it’d be kept out of mind too. So I return to what Jesus said to the crowd clamouring to stone the woman caught in adultery. The crowd left after some time, and he turned to the woman and told her to sin no more. It was swift and resolute. It was redemption through abounding grace. But this is different. The crowd here was speechless after the unravelling. Mind you, they were not the one who uncovered it with the aim of putting Jesus in a spot. I presumed PM Lee had been counselling them for the longest time, and even after a promise had been made in Feb, the affair soldiered on. Alas, I can’t imagine the agony their families have to go thru. TCJ himself has one son and one daughter. Of course, I pray for healing and reconciliation in this very trying and long journey. TCJ said he wished for privacy to heal with family. Yet, you can’t help but feel they had given themselves a lot of self-indulgences over the years to finally come to that crossroad. No doubt I wish him well, especially his family, but I believe that that first step remains just a step, with an obvious gap. For a betrayal of this nature demands more from us to piece the shattered trust and heart back together again, one micro-piece at a time. It will take resolve, consistency and patience to make it stick. Climbing back up from the slippery slope defies not just gravity, but our unpredictable appetites. Some may even say that if a general can’t resist temptation, what’s more foot soldiers? Well, we should not be so naive to think that titles or positions matter. What counts in the end is how we allow power to shape us. That defines us, for good or bad. You have heard of the seven deadly sins. There is in fact an eighth, and that is when we allow power to shape the opportunity so that we fall into our own unhinged appetites. And anything short of that, no matter how convicted we feel, well, you may need to cast a stone or two just to wake us up from our dreamy stupor.   Michael Han   * The author blogs on Facebook.          Read More →

The following is an interesting verbatim post of a comment by our techie on the Tan Chuan-Jin fiasco. We feel that it is interesting and warrant further discussion  because it presents a fresh perspective. For the record, I am glad that Chuan-Jin is no longer the speaker, for he is clearly unfit to be one due to his extreme bias. However, I feel that the reason for him stepping down is wrong. He should have been sacked or removed for his action in the parliament, not for his personal indiscretion and sexual preference. Whatever happened between him and CHL is a private affair and should not be used to judge a person’s competence at doing his job, IMHO. A person’s sexual preference and inclination is his own business, none of ours. There are swinger politicians, there are probably politicians that live a polyamory or BDSM  lifestyle, and there are openly gay politicians who are doing a great job all around the world, why should there be any issues? Whatever he did is best left to his family and spouse to cry father cry mother, who are we to make so much noise about? It is a private affair that I feel we have no business poking our nose into. Most importantly, Is there a law that says getting into an affair is illegal? There is a reason why there is a phrase that goes “waking up on the right side of the bed” and not for no reason. Studies have shown that when a person is sexually satisfied, he/she tend to be in a very good mood and do a better job. Maybe the former speaker is getting low quality or inadequate quantity of sex thus resulting in his using of the F* word in parliament out of frustration? What do you think?        Read More →

It doesn’t matter if it’s non-justification or justifying the unjustifiable. The cycle of justification has to go on. From COVID-19 to corruption probe, they find ways to spin justification. The virus was used to justify why Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong could not meet his target to step down – he had to steer the country through the COVID-19 crisis. Now, the talk from political analysts on mainstream media is that the ongoing investigation on Minister S Iswaran would make it “far harder” for PM Lee to do a handover. Justifying why PM-in-waiting Lawrence Wong has to wait longer. The arrest of Minister Iswaran has supporters justifying on social media that it shows the People’s Action Party (PAP) is able to ownself check ownself. Even presidential hopeful Tharman Shanmugaratnam waded in with similiar justification to “treat the setback as an opportunity to strengthen the system, to display full transparency.” Trying to turn adversity to advantage through their own brand of justification. Tharman himself has had to justify why he is the right man for elected president, given that he has been a PAP man for decades. But no amount of justification can erase what the people see on his forehead – the lightning bolt symbol of the PAP. Leader of the House Indranee Rajah has announced that Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin’s unspeakable remark will be addressed at the next Parliament sitting—though Tan has since resigned as a MP today. They had to dig really deep to justify why six top executives were not prosecuted for the Keppel bribery scandal. Still, the people see the stern warning as a gut punch to the country’s zero tolerance against corruption. They are still trying to justify why SPH Media Trust should be funded to the tune of $900 million, despite the circulation data fabrication. The people see it as a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. In the case of Karl Liew, son of Liew Mun Leong, former chairman of Changi Airport Group, there’s simply no justifying why the prosecution did not ask for a custodial sentence, and why the judge said the prosecution’s submission read like mitigation. Karl was sentenced to two weeks’ jail for lying in the Parti Liyani case, only because the judge decided that “nothing less than an imprisonment sentence is due for such cases.” They have attempted to justify that HDB flats are affordable, GST increase is for the poor, the size of the country’s reserves are a secret, and the Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) is good for the country and good for Singaporeans. But how many people buy any of it? The one that sets a record for the most justification is the ministers’ controversial occupation of Ridout properties. From why ministers need to rent from the government when they have their own bungalows, to why the bid rent is similar to guide rent, to why trees were felled, to why such extensive and expensive repair works before move-in, to why a minister could ask a subordinate for a list of vacant rental properties, to why no conflict of interest, to why no breach of ministerial code of conduct, to why a buddy was the best man for an independent review. Just imagine the time, effort and money spent on justification after justification – from involving public servants and government agencies to convening investigations to convening Parliament. But it seems they are determined to go down the rabbit hole. Surely the people ought to realise by now that they are only buying time instead of going all out to stop the rot.   Augustine Low      Read More →