I was glad to learn that Colonel Ishak bin Ismail will be promoted to the rank of Brigadier General come 1st July. As Commander of the 6th Division since last August — division commanders in Singapore are usually BGs — his promotion was unsurprising.

What makes his achievement so significant is the fact that he became a BG despite having two “strikes” against him: He is Malay in the Singapore army, and he is not a government scholar. Although I have never served under him, I am confident that the SAF would not place a man in command of one of our three Combined Arms Divisions just for the sake of political tokenism.

Nevertheless, Singaporeans should not be lulled into thinking that full meritocracy has arrived in the SAF. There are still many “sensitive” units that have recently naturalised citizens but not a single Malay in their ranks.

Read more »

—

Get my latest updates. Join my Facebook Page.

Technorati Tags: army, Malays, SAF

I became one of probably hundreds of patients who were hauled to Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) in the past week for suspected Influenza A (H1N1), also known as swine flu. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience, but I’m in a way glad I got to witness first hand the fight in the trenches against this viral illness.

The episode started with my 4-day business trip to Australia last week. When I returned on Monday evening, I had a little runny nose and sore throat so decided to head straight from the airport to my GP clinic, even though I had breezed through the thermal scanners at Changi Airport without incident.

Read more »

—

Get my latest updates. Join my Facebook Page.

Technorati Tags: H1N1, healthcare, influenza, swine flu

The Straits Times did an Insight piece about PAP MP Hri Kumar’s controversial proposal of having nominated (non-elected) ministers. They quoted some comments I made on my previous blog post:

For administrative aspects, there are already people like the permanent secretaries heading the various ministries, he notes.

The view is shared by IT consultant Gerald Giam, a founding member of the socio-political blog The Online Citizen.

He writes on his blog that ministers need to have the common touch; they need to be people who can empathise with ordinary Singaporeans.

‘If we open the doors to this segment of society to lead us, we will be fishing from the wrong pond. We will, in the long run, attract the wrong sort of people to lead our country – people with a different set of values and motivations,’ he says.

Mr Giam, Mr Siew and Dr Tan all say that a parallel cannot be drawn between Singapore’s parliamentary system and the presidential system in the United States, where the Cabinet is made up of people who are appointed, not elected.

Some friends have expressed to me publicly and privately that they in principle support the idea of non-elected ministers because some ministries (e.g., finance) need “technocratic minds”. However, I still maintain my disagreement with the idea.

Read more »

—

Get my latest updates. Join my Facebook Page.

Technorati Tags: MPs, Parliament, Town Councils