Wednesday, August 15, 2018

THE PEOPLE’S VOICE OR THE PAP’S VOICE?


The troubling spectre of elderly Singaporeans doing menial jobs like cleaning toilets, pushing rubbish carts, collecting cardboards and wiping tables at hawker centres, has become all too common these days and doubtless weighs heavy on the minds and conscience of many Singaporeans.
Financial Support for the Elderly Poor
Voicing questions which I believe many of us have, a concerned resident took the mic at a South-East Community Development Council (CDC) conference on 2 Aug 2018 [1] to ask whether elderly Singaporeans were being forced to work at manual jobs “just to survive” and whether the Government could provide a pension scheme to meet the basic financial needs of the elderly.  He also wondered if such a pension scheme could be funded by a marginal cut on the defence budget or by cutting Ministerial salaries by 10%.
As the resident from Braddell Heights, put it: “I think not many people will believe you if you say that elderly work because they want to mix, because they want to do exercise. Perhaps they work because they need to work."
Grassroots Adviser Lim Biow Chuan responded to the resident’s concerns as follows:
  1. For the elderly, the Government has the Silver Support Scheme, which “does help quite a number of our seniors”;
  2. For low-income citizens, “the Government does take quite good care of you. There are actually many, many schemes to help look after those who are poor”; and
  3. For elderly who are not poor but wish to work, “I personally think it is a good thing, because if not, then what do you expect the elderly to do at home?”


Wearing Two Hats
To best understand Lim Biow Chuan’s response, we need to recognise that he wears two hats. He is both:
  1. Adviser to Mountbatten Grassroots Organisations under the People’s Association (PA); and
  2. Member of Parliament (MP) for Mountbatten SMC.

The two hats are distinct roles, which do not fit as one.
The role of an MP is to be the voice of the people in Parliament. The MP’s job is to channel feedback, grievances and issues from his constituents to the government of the day.  Voters expect their MPs to advocate their concerns, to champion their issues and to hold the Government accountable for their decisions and for their deployment of public funds.  
On the other hand, the PA’s key role is to promote, explain and defend government policies and programmes to Singaporeans.  In effect, the PA is the Government’s apologist i.e. the Government’s defender and spokesperson. The Grassroots Adviser’s job is to help the PA to carry out its said role.
Clearly, the MP’s role is set to clash with his concurrent job as Grassroots Adviser when it comes to unpopular Government policies.  While voters expect their MPs to champion their grievances with Government policies, the PA expects their Grassroots Advisers to promote and defend those very same policies.   
The fact that the two hats do not fit as one, is proven by the PA’s refusal to appoint non-PAP MPs as their Grassroots Advisers.  The PA has flatly refused to have non-PAP MPs as their Grassroots Advisers on the basis that non-PAP MPs cannot be expected to champion all Government policies - good and bad - in the way that PAP MPs can be relied on to do so.[2]
The Braddell Heights resident raised a very valid concern, but the occasion on which he raised his concern was at a Southeast CDC Conference. CDCs are part of the PA.  
I do not blame the Braddell Heights resident if he was confused. He saw his MPs before him and he must have thought that as his MPs they would listen, carry his voice to Parliament and advocate for change.
“the Government does take quite good care of you”
Instead, the resident got a show-and-tell. Right on the mark, Lim Biow Chuan responded to the resident by assuring him that the Government already has the Silver Support Scheme, which “does help quite a number of our seniors”; and for low-income citizens, “the Government does take quite good care of you. There are actually many, many schemes to help look after those who are poor”.
After explaining what the Government was already doing for the elderly and the poor, Lim Biow Chuan then went on to exhort his listeners not to shirk from their own personal responsibilities towards their aged, by saying:
“My sense is always that we shouldn’t always look to the government to solve the issues of the elderly. It is every child’s responsibility to look after their parents, because your parents looked after you when you are young. To all those who are getting elderly, I hope that you don’t think that your children should not look after you. These are their responsibilities. And this is what filial piety is all about."
Of course, children have a moral duty to care for their parents. But the Government also has a social responsibility towards the elderly.  Taking care of the elderly is a joint responsibility of both the young and the State. 
The needs of the elderly encompass medical, physical, emotional as well as financial.  Indeed, very few of us can comfortably shoulder the entire burden of all those needs.  It is not unreasonable to expect the State has to share a meaningful portion of the burden.  After all, we pay a lot in taxes and we expect our hard-earned monies to be spent on the public.    
Instead of calling on the Government do to their part and to do more for the elderly, we see the MP asking his constituents NOT to look to the Government to solve the issues of the elderly.  The MP was more focussed on ensuring that the individual does not shirk his personal responsibility for his parents. I would have preferred my MP to be more bent on ensuring that our Government does not evade their responsibility towards our elderly citizens.
“Ministers are not paid enough”
What the Braddell Heights resident wanted to know, was whether the Government could alleviate the financial hardship of the elderly by a pension scheme, and whether the pension scheme could be funded by reducing Ministerial salaries.
As if to ensure that any thought of cutting Ministerial salaries is buried 6 feet underground, Lim Biow Chuan’s tag team-mate, Grassroots Adviser Goh Chok Tong took the mic to rebuke the resident for suggesting Ministerial salaries be cut to fund a pension scheme for the elderly:
“Had you suggested to up GST by 2 per cent and give them the pension, I would have applauded you. Seriously. Because you are then taxing the whole society to support older ones. But you did not. You said cut from defence, 1 per cent is enough. And on top of that, you said cut Ministers’ salaries. That is very populist. I am telling you the Ministers are not paid enough, and down the road, we are going to get a problem with getting people to join the government, because civil servants now earn more than Ministers. Are you aware of that?”
Citizens are short-changed

Having been co-opted into the PA, PAP MPs cannot fully perform their role as your voice in Parliament. They cannot challenge Government policies, ask difficult questions or hold the Government to account for how they deploy public funds, without having regard to their obligations to the PA – which is on top of their obligations to the Party Whip.
Citizens need to know that when PAP MPs go around their constituency making house visits and meeting residents, they do so in their capacity as Grassroots Advisers, not as political MPs. 
House Visits by Grassroot Adviser
As Grassroots Advisers, their job is to promote, explain and defend existing Government policies.  Even questionable policies - such as sky-scraper high ministerial salaries and shamefully inadequate help for the elderly poor – stand to be vigorously defended by PAP MPs working with the PA Machinery.   
Citizens need to know that so long as the PA continues to appoint PAP MPs as their Grassroots Advisers, and thereby co-opting them into their Machinery to bolster their role as the Government’s apologist, constituents will be denied the full measure of the advocate, activist and political leader that they had voted for. 
We are short-changed. Instead being the People’s Voice, our PAP MPs defect from serving our cause to become the PA’s Voice.  Bearing in mind that the PA are servants of the PAP Government, the PAP MPs end up as the PAP’s Voice. 
Cloaked by the pretext of promoting social cohesion, the PA has the effect of distorting our democratic system to the advantage of the ruling party.

Monday, June 18, 2018

OUR RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS EX-OFFENDERS


I read with a mixture of intrigue, cheer and dismay the letter from Mr Sunny Lee, Director, Media Relations, Community Partnership and Communications Group, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) captioned "Score focused on securing jobs for ex-offenders" published in The Straits Times Forum page on 16 June 2018. [1]

INTRIGUE.

I am intrigued by Mr Lee saying, in reference to The Straits Times article captioned MP Lim Biow Chuan clarifies comments on former offender's job snub, calls for 'proper conversation' published on June 10, 2018 [2] (the June 10 article):

Unfortunately, it does not state the position accurately.”

Yet, curiously, Mr Lee did not go on to clarify what is "the position" which the June 10 article stated inaccurately nor explain in what way the June 10 article stated "the position" inaccurately.

Instead, Mr Lee went on to detail the efforts of The Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises (SCORE) in helping ex-offenders find jobs. 

What is clear is that the June 10 article is a summary of Mr Lim Biow Chuan’s arguments justifying job curbs on ex-offenders, especially for a security officer's job.

The June 10 article highlighted several aspects of Mr Lim’s arguments, such as Mr Lim noting that while it was easy to say that the police should give ex-offenders a second chance, the reality is that "most of us would err on the side of caution".

The June 10 article also featured Mr Lim’s comments where he compared a convicted child molester with a person convicted of assault:

"...we would not want a convicted child molester to teach swimming to young children; we would also not want a person convicted of dishonesty to be involved in finances or accounts of a company ... Along the same principles, we would not want a person convicted of assault to be employed as a security officer protecting the residents."

Mr Lim’s comments expressed a tough stance against ex-offenders in the interest of public protection. Whose views is he representing- MHA, the general public or perhaps his own?

The concerns about hiring ex-offenders expressed by Mr Lim can hardly be helpful to SCORE, a MHA agency.  In fact, such negative attitudes about ex-offenders must surely undermine and hinder the efforts being made by SCORE to help ex-offenders find jobs. Which may perhaps be why MHA has stepped into the public square with Mr Lee’s letter. So, I don’t think that Mr Lim is representing MHA’s views.

Mr Lim’s remarks generated some controversy and many detractors have voiced their disagreement with his views about ex-offenders. So, I have to surmise that Mr Lim’s views do not represent the general public.

Hence, Mr Lim may well be representing his own views or the views of a segment of our society who are privileged to be among those who have never broken the law.

It is telling that Mr Lim uses the ‘us versus them’ stance in his comments, referring to “we” on the one side and “the ex-offenders” on the other side. As much as some may want to take comfort in the description, “we are not like them”, that is ultimately a false dichotomy which belies the truth that ex-offenders are members of our society. Being so, they matter and their well-being are our collective responsibility.

The trouble is, Mr Lim’s cautionary comments against employing ex-offenders appear more reflective of fears than of fact and serves more to affirm prejudice than to spur constructive public discourse.

For example, Mr Lim’s rhetoric question "The concern of police would always be, what if the offender re-offends?" does not square with the fact that most ex-offenders do not re-offend. In 2016, the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) reported that overall recidivism rates have remained "low and stable".  

Moreover, the rate of re-offending is directly related to how society treats and re-integrates ex-offenders:

“Rehabilitation and reintegration work does not simply stop at the end of an inmate's jail term but continues into the community, said Mr Rockey Francisco Jr, who is the director of SPS' Community Corrections Command. "It's what they do outside that counts, (which is) most importantly, to stay crime free and to not re-offend," he said, while stressing the importance of community partnerships in ensuring that inmates do not go back to their old ways.”

Barriers to re-integration, such as job restrictions and social stigma contribute to higher rates of re-offending. The end result is a vicious cycle and a fractured society.

Imprisonment serves the fourfold purposes of punishment, deterrence, incapacitation and reformation.  The mission statement of SPS states that it is a correctional agency which enforces secure custody of offenders and rehabilitate them, for a safe Singapore.  It is not misplaced to have some confidence in SPS’s ability to fulfil their mission of deterrence and rehabilitation.  When someone has served his time and has been released from jail, it is not unreasonable to expect that he would want to keep out of jail. 

If one were to follow the line of Mr Lim’s argument as reflected in the June 10 article, one would come away with the impression that the police would not and should not allow anyone with a criminal record to ever be employed as a security officer to err on the side of caution in the interests of ensuring public safety.

CHEER.

I am cheered by Mr Lee’s letter because it clarifies that the job restrictions imposed by MHA against ex-offenders are not absolute or permanent, even for a security officer’s job.  According to Mr Lee:

“… depending on the severity and relevance of the offence, a person with crime antecedents is required to remain offence-free for some time, before he can take up certain jobs, including the job of a security officer”.

It is heartening that a degree of forgiveness is being shown and practised by MHA.  

But answers from MHA are still needed by ex-offenders for such questions as:

1.       What kind of jobs would MHA seek to "protect the public" from and be deemed as being unsuitable for ex-offenders to work in?
2.       What convictions would restrict ex-offenders from taking up which kind of jobs?
3.       In respect of an ex-offender convicted of a certain offence, how long would he have to wait before his past conviction ceases to affect his job opportunities?

Ex-offenders would greatly benefit from knowing the extent of the job restrictions applicable to them.  It hoped that MHA would give ex-offenders more information on the MHA policies affecting them and more transparency in their screening processes, so that ex-offenders can manage their expectations and not be set up for disappointment when they hope, apply and fail in their job application.

That said, it is encouraging that Mr Lee’s letter affirms MHA’s commitment to help ex-offenders reintegrate into society.

However, the silver lining in Mr Lee’s letter is marred by a dark cloud of inexcusable indiscretion.

DISMAY.

I am dismayed by Mr Lee's indiscretion in mentioning the actual name of the Potong Pasir resident in his letter, knowing full well that his letter is for public consumption.  Up to now, the resident has not been identified to the public.   

The resident has served his prison term. He has paid his debt to society. Yet, after his release from prison, he faces difficulties like job restrictions and social prejudice. This was the predicament which Mr Jose Raymond raised to public awareness by his Facebook post of 6 June 2018 [4].  When doing so, Jose Raymond made sure to withhold the identity of the resident to protect his privacy.

Even though Mr Jose Raymond’s post went viral, the resident has remained anonymous, up to now. Ironically, an MHA Director of Communications has exposed the resident's identity to the public.  

Surely one would expect a communications expert, with MHA no less, to be cognisant of the adverse consequences of publicising someone’s identity, let alone someone who is already suffering the social stigma of being an ex-convict.

I am also disappointed with the ST forum editor for not picking up and correcting Mr Lee's failure to anonymise the resident. I have known ST forum editors to assiduously scrub and revise letters, especially letters which express dissenting views. I hope it is not the case that the ST forum editors lapsed their usual diligence and posted Mr Lee’s letter without review, simply because the letter came from a MHA media rep.  If that were the case, then it would only serve as evidence of groupthink.

Mr Lee’s remiss notwithstanding, his letter reminds that we have a responsibility towards ex-offenders.  

Of course, the needs of the few (in this case, ex-offenders) have to be weighed against the needs of the many (i.e. the public interests).  To “err on the side of caution” is a valid policy, but its end result is zero tolerance and exclusion.  It is a harsh society which allows the concerns and needs of the majority to hold full sway over those of the minority.  Policies must serve society as a whole, not just a majority of - or worse, the more powerful in - society.  Policies which serve the interests of the majority at the expense of the minority do not necessarily serve the greater good of society.  Rather, the greater good is served when policies reflect the principles, ideals and aspirations which identify our society.

Policies affecting ex-offenders should give expression to principles like forgiveness, those who make mistakes deserve a second chance and everyone matters.

It is the responsibility of the privileged to care for the less privileged. When we take care of the lesser and least among us, we are a better society. And that is the greater good.

Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss
18 June 2018





[1] https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-in-print/score-focused-on-securing-jobs-for-ex-offenders
[2] https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/mp-clarifies-comments-on-former-offenders-job-snub-calls-for-proper-conversation
[3] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/recidivism-rates-remain-low-and-stable-due-to-strong-community-support-for
[4] https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2018/06/06/spf-rejects-application-of-ex-offender-to-be-security-officer-writes-he-is-not-a-fit-and-proper-person/