[h=1]CNA DELETES ARTICLE ABOUT JOSEPHINE TEO SAYING WE SHOULDN'T PAY NSMEN MORE[/h]
Post date:
4 Mar 2015 - 4:23pm
Background Story: Josephine Teo: NSmen's Service to Singapore can't be Measured in Dollars and Cents.
Dear TRS, Josephine Teo Obviously Doesn't Know of the Struggles many NSF Face.
In a feedback session on Budget 2015 on Feb 26, Senior Minister of State for Finance and Transport Josephine Teo said “service for the country cannot be measured in dollars and cents” when one participant suggested that National Servicemen should be paid more. (Strangely, the article on Channel News Asia which reported this can longer be found online though a cached copy can still be found on Google as this post was being drafted. I have also made a screen shot of that article in case it’s purged fro Google cache.)
There is no doubt such a statement has got a lot of Singaporean men riled up. Anyone who just use the following terms on Google – Josephine Teo NS – will get a pretty good idea what most have to say on some of the forums. Even one of my friends wrote an blog post on it.
There used to be a time when government ministers has the aura of infalliability and invinicibility. Not any more when you look at the likes of Lim Swee Say, Chan Chun Seng, Grace Fu and Josephine Teo. They don’t even look ministerial. As I once mentioned to a colleague and friend, the end of the PAP may come not because that the opposition has become more capable. It comes because the kind of “top talent” the PAP managed to recruit simply failed to command any respect from the people, as the vote swing in the previous Punggol East by-election has shown. To paraphrase what I told my colleague back then, “It’s like playing chess or soccer. If you keep playing against those whose standard is not your match, not only will your skills not improve, it will actually start to deteriorate.”
So, instead of lashing out at Josephine Teo for being a woman and having not served NS, or ranting about how the Singaporean male lose 2 years of the prime of their lives bearing arms instead of climbing the corporate ladder, I would say this to her:
“Ask yourself madam, how is it that some have to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the rest and yet become economically disadvantaged for doing so, while the rest gets to enjoy the benefit for free and even reap economic advantages from the sacrifice of those serving NS? How to even the sum?”
It’s high time the country give those who served reasonable benefits, when her own boss the Prime Minister justifies for the ministers’ very own “reasonable” pay. In the previous ministerial pay review in Parliament, did she tell the Prime Minsiter that “service for the country cannot be measured in dollars and cents”?
I doubt so. As a friend so rightly point out, the PAP’s slogan these days appears to be:“Practise what I preach, but not what I do.”
There’s a word for that – H Y P O C R I S Y.
And really, there are a lot of people who aren’t really anti-PAP. They are just anti-hypocrisy.
Post date:
4 Mar 2015 - 4:23pm
Background Story: Josephine Teo: NSmen's Service to Singapore can't be Measured in Dollars and Cents.
Dear TRS, Josephine Teo Obviously Doesn't Know of the Struggles many NSF Face.
In a feedback session on Budget 2015 on Feb 26, Senior Minister of State for Finance and Transport Josephine Teo said “service for the country cannot be measured in dollars and cents” when one participant suggested that National Servicemen should be paid more. (Strangely, the article on Channel News Asia which reported this can longer be found online though a cached copy can still be found on Google as this post was being drafted. I have also made a screen shot of that article in case it’s purged fro Google cache.)
There is no doubt such a statement has got a lot of Singaporean men riled up. Anyone who just use the following terms on Google – Josephine Teo NS – will get a pretty good idea what most have to say on some of the forums. Even one of my friends wrote an blog post on it.
There used to be a time when government ministers has the aura of infalliability and invinicibility. Not any more when you look at the likes of Lim Swee Say, Chan Chun Seng, Grace Fu and Josephine Teo. They don’t even look ministerial. As I once mentioned to a colleague and friend, the end of the PAP may come not because that the opposition has become more capable. It comes because the kind of “top talent” the PAP managed to recruit simply failed to command any respect from the people, as the vote swing in the previous Punggol East by-election has shown. To paraphrase what I told my colleague back then, “It’s like playing chess or soccer. If you keep playing against those whose standard is not your match, not only will your skills not improve, it will actually start to deteriorate.”
So, instead of lashing out at Josephine Teo for being a woman and having not served NS, or ranting about how the Singaporean male lose 2 years of the prime of their lives bearing arms instead of climbing the corporate ladder, I would say this to her:
“Ask yourself madam, how is it that some have to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the rest and yet become economically disadvantaged for doing so, while the rest gets to enjoy the benefit for free and even reap economic advantages from the sacrifice of those serving NS? How to even the sum?”
It’s high time the country give those who served reasonable benefits, when her own boss the Prime Minister justifies for the ministers’ very own “reasonable” pay. In the previous ministerial pay review in Parliament, did she tell the Prime Minsiter that “service for the country cannot be measured in dollars and cents”?
I doubt so. As a friend so rightly point out, the PAP’s slogan these days appears to be:“Practise what I preach, but not what I do.”
There’s a word for that – H Y P O C R I S Y.
And really, there are a lot of people who aren’t really anti-PAP. They are just anti-hypocrisy.
