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As we all know by now, Ms Yacob has been pretty much anointed the next President of Singapore courtesy of Minister Chan Chun Sing in Parliament. As I looked at her back ground and her family history, one thing struck me with as the most alarming aspect of her character.
Let me go first into her background so that the reader can understand what I am saying. Yacob is the product of an impoverished background. I mean we are talking dirt poor. In many ways she is the Singapore success story. Her father was a Muslim Indian working as a jagar (watchman) and her Malay mother was a food seller. Her parents raised 5 kids in a one room flat on Hindoo Road in Little India. Her father passed away when she was 8 years old, leaving her mother as the sole breadwinner. As a result, she had to help her mother sell food every day before and after school. The mother operated an illegal nasi pandang push cart and every morning, at 5am, she helped the mother shop for ingredients and do the cooking before she went to school. Many times, she helped the mother push the cart around Shenton Way, dodging police officers. And after school, she had to help wash up the dishes and containers. As a result, she missed many classes and school days at SCGS and was threatened with expulsion at one time.
Eventually, she managed to get into NUS but could not enroll because she did not have enough money for the tuition fees. A last minute $1000 annual Bursary from the Islamic Religious Council plus $50 a month from her older brother working at that time as a prison guard enabled her to study law at NUS. She met her future husband at NUS (he was a physics major) and they married 2 years after graduation. Eventually, when the new Yishun estate was developed, they moved into a 5 room flat in one of the blocks while her mother lived in the 4 room flat next door. They knocked the wall down between the 2 flats (not sure if that is allowed by HDB), and combined the flats. She then raised 5 children in that Yishun flat and has stayed in the same flat for last 30 years, even when she became Speaker.
So far so good, you say. She is the polar opposite of the born with a silver spoon in their mouth types like Lee Hsien Loong, Teo Chee Hean, Tony Tan, etc. And also very different from those also from humble backgrounds like Chan Chun Sing, but who managed to study at Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, etc on one form of scholarship or another. These fellow MPs were different in that their whole future was mapped out for them, what with the govt paying for an expensive overseas first class education, followed by good salaries in the SAF. And lets be assured they do not still live in the same HDB flat for the last 30 years that Yacob has.
You might say that she is the second coming of Ong Teng Cheong. The rare politician that actually lives among the unwashed masses and interacts with them daily. The rare politician who is not born rich or was in the military. The rare politician that is in touch with the people. The rare politician that over came many obstacles in life that other MPs cannot even dream off. She worked for everything she had. So, she is the perfect choice for President, right? Wrong. Dead Wrong.
Halimah Yacob has talked about the small provision shop that she buys her stuff from and how the owner complains about the high cost of rent. She has talked about the same doctor she has gone to for the last 30 years. She lives among the heartlanders and sees all the changes in Singapore for the last 30 years in her own neighbourhood, but yet she is blind and possibly brain dead.
Why is she blind and possibly brain dead? She is blind because the shop keeper complains to her about high rents and how hard she works, but she does not look into it, nor bring it up in Parliament or with her party. Why is the rent so high? Why is HDB so greedy? How can this type of small business survive?
She is blind because she cannot see that her family doctor’s clinic has been having more and more foreign health care workers working there. She is brain dead because she does not wonder where all those local Singaporean nurses and office staff have gone. Why were they replaced by these foreign workers? She is blind because she cannot see that more and more foreigners are moving into her neighbourhood and living in the same block as her, and in other neighbouring blocks, despite the fact that HDB housing is build for only Singaporeans and PRs. She is brain dead not to question why are all these people living here, and why are they staying in taxpayer subsidized flats. She is blind because she cannot see that such an influx of foreigners into her area throws the ethnic balance off and puts a strain on schools and resources. HDB flats are build for 3.5 million S’poreans but when you shoe horn 5.9 million people into them, something has to give.
Incredibly, people like LHL can be forgiven for not seeing any of this. Why? Because, they are living in their ivory tower luxury landed properties and can’t possibly have any idea how the heartlanders live. But she can see this. She can see the people are not happy. She must know of neighbours and others that have been retrenched, losing their jobs to FTs, yet what has she done about it?
Even worse, her deep involvement in the labour union movement really strikes home to me what a useless person she is. She has spend over 30 years in NTUC, supposedly “to fight for the workers”, yet NTUC in collusion with MOM/PAP are the worse exploiters of Singapore workers rights. Any MNC or local company can fire Singapore workers and hire FT tomorrow with no or very little consequences. When NOL was sold off I did not hear her or NTUC advocating to protect Singapore worker’s jobs. Her govt’s policies have successfully depressed the local wages and made Singaporeans noncompetitive in their own country. What happened to fighting for laws to protect Singaporean’s jobs or even a simple thing like extending maternity leave with guaranteed reemployment when the mother comes back to work? The fact is that Singapore workers are some of the least protected workers in the industrial world. Statistically and factually speaking, the PAP has created hundreds of thousands more jobs for non Singaporeans then for its own citizens.
So I can only conclude the following:
1) 1)Halimah Yacob is a genuinely sincere and humble person but she is either too intellectually challenged to see how the policies of her own govt and the compliant NTUC are killing Singapore workers.
2) 2)Halimah Yacob does see and understand all the effects of all the PAP’s poor policies on Singapore workers and heartlanders, but chose to ignore them and play ball and collect her MP pay and other nice paychecks. hence she is a great actress.
3) 3)Halimah Yacob is too lazy and too non confrontational to truly fight for the rights of the Singapore worker and heartlander.
If someone like her, who came from such a humble background is so brain dead, or brain washed, or bought with money, what chance do we have of actually uncovering a politician that can see what is really going on and do something about it? She of all people should be able to start changes internally in the PAP and the govt. but so far, she does not appear to either be interested or to even know there is a problem. In any case, under any of the 3 scenarios, she is not fit for the position of President of Singapore.
Let me go first into her background so that the reader can understand what I am saying. Yacob is the product of an impoverished background. I mean we are talking dirt poor. In many ways she is the Singapore success story. Her father was a Muslim Indian working as a jagar (watchman) and her Malay mother was a food seller. Her parents raised 5 kids in a one room flat on Hindoo Road in Little India. Her father passed away when she was 8 years old, leaving her mother as the sole breadwinner. As a result, she had to help her mother sell food every day before and after school. The mother operated an illegal nasi pandang push cart and every morning, at 5am, she helped the mother shop for ingredients and do the cooking before she went to school. Many times, she helped the mother push the cart around Shenton Way, dodging police officers. And after school, she had to help wash up the dishes and containers. As a result, she missed many classes and school days at SCGS and was threatened with expulsion at one time.
Eventually, she managed to get into NUS but could not enroll because she did not have enough money for the tuition fees. A last minute $1000 annual Bursary from the Islamic Religious Council plus $50 a month from her older brother working at that time as a prison guard enabled her to study law at NUS. She met her future husband at NUS (he was a physics major) and they married 2 years after graduation. Eventually, when the new Yishun estate was developed, they moved into a 5 room flat in one of the blocks while her mother lived in the 4 room flat next door. They knocked the wall down between the 2 flats (not sure if that is allowed by HDB), and combined the flats. She then raised 5 children in that Yishun flat and has stayed in the same flat for last 30 years, even when she became Speaker.
So far so good, you say. She is the polar opposite of the born with a silver spoon in their mouth types like Lee Hsien Loong, Teo Chee Hean, Tony Tan, etc. And also very different from those also from humble backgrounds like Chan Chun Sing, but who managed to study at Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, etc on one form of scholarship or another. These fellow MPs were different in that their whole future was mapped out for them, what with the govt paying for an expensive overseas first class education, followed by good salaries in the SAF. And lets be assured they do not still live in the same HDB flat for the last 30 years that Yacob has.
You might say that she is the second coming of Ong Teng Cheong. The rare politician that actually lives among the unwashed masses and interacts with them daily. The rare politician who is not born rich or was in the military. The rare politician that is in touch with the people. The rare politician that over came many obstacles in life that other MPs cannot even dream off. She worked for everything she had. So, she is the perfect choice for President, right? Wrong. Dead Wrong.
Halimah Yacob has talked about the small provision shop that she buys her stuff from and how the owner complains about the high cost of rent. She has talked about the same doctor she has gone to for the last 30 years. She lives among the heartlanders and sees all the changes in Singapore for the last 30 years in her own neighbourhood, but yet she is blind and possibly brain dead.
Why is she blind and possibly brain dead? She is blind because the shop keeper complains to her about high rents and how hard she works, but she does not look into it, nor bring it up in Parliament or with her party. Why is the rent so high? Why is HDB so greedy? How can this type of small business survive?
She is blind because she cannot see that her family doctor’s clinic has been having more and more foreign health care workers working there. She is brain dead because she does not wonder where all those local Singaporean nurses and office staff have gone. Why were they replaced by these foreign workers? She is blind because she cannot see that more and more foreigners are moving into her neighbourhood and living in the same block as her, and in other neighbouring blocks, despite the fact that HDB housing is build for only Singaporeans and PRs. She is brain dead not to question why are all these people living here, and why are they staying in taxpayer subsidized flats. She is blind because she cannot see that such an influx of foreigners into her area throws the ethnic balance off and puts a strain on schools and resources. HDB flats are build for 3.5 million S’poreans but when you shoe horn 5.9 million people into them, something has to give.
Incredibly, people like LHL can be forgiven for not seeing any of this. Why? Because, they are living in their ivory tower luxury landed properties and can’t possibly have any idea how the heartlanders live. But she can see this. She can see the people are not happy. She must know of neighbours and others that have been retrenched, losing their jobs to FTs, yet what has she done about it?
Even worse, her deep involvement in the labour union movement really strikes home to me what a useless person she is. She has spend over 30 years in NTUC, supposedly “to fight for the workers”, yet NTUC in collusion with MOM/PAP are the worse exploiters of Singapore workers rights. Any MNC or local company can fire Singapore workers and hire FT tomorrow with no or very little consequences. When NOL was sold off I did not hear her or NTUC advocating to protect Singapore worker’s jobs. Her govt’s policies have successfully depressed the local wages and made Singaporeans noncompetitive in their own country. What happened to fighting for laws to protect Singaporean’s jobs or even a simple thing like extending maternity leave with guaranteed reemployment when the mother comes back to work? The fact is that Singapore workers are some of the least protected workers in the industrial world. Statistically and factually speaking, the PAP has created hundreds of thousands more jobs for non Singaporeans then for its own citizens.
So I can only conclude the following:
1) 1)Halimah Yacob is a genuinely sincere and humble person but she is either too intellectually challenged to see how the policies of her own govt and the compliant NTUC are killing Singapore workers.
2) 2)Halimah Yacob does see and understand all the effects of all the PAP’s poor policies on Singapore workers and heartlanders, but chose to ignore them and play ball and collect her MP pay and other nice paychecks. hence she is a great actress.
3) 3)Halimah Yacob is too lazy and too non confrontational to truly fight for the rights of the Singapore worker and heartlander.
If someone like her, who came from such a humble background is so brain dead, or brain washed, or bought with money, what chance do we have of actually uncovering a politician that can see what is really going on and do something about it? She of all people should be able to start changes internally in the PAP and the govt. but so far, she does not appear to either be interested or to even know there is a problem. In any case, under any of the 3 scenarios, she is not fit for the position of President of Singapore.