Category: Singapore

Crowding in public transport is a weak link in social distancing measures that are being rolled out island-wide in view of the coronavirus pandemic. People are expected to sit at least 1 metre apart in the office and in restaurants, but then they proceed to squeeze into packed trains on the journey home. One solution would be to increase the frequency of buses and trains. That will reduce crowding and increase social distance (better than simply not talking, which one of our ministers suggested), and it is something within the control of the government and the public transport operators.

So sad to hear about Singapore’s first two Covid-19 deaths happening within hours of each other. (Update 29/3/2020: A third death has since occurred.) My deepest condolences to the families of the two patients, an elderly Singaporean lady and an Indonesian man. This is something that we had been bracing ourselves for but the news still hits you like a ton of bricks. Let’s all continue to protect ourselves, our loved ones and the people around us by doing our part.

It’s great to be back doing food distribution in East Coast GRC! Oh wait, we never went away — Fengshan is now back in East Coast! Regardless of how they change the boundaries, we will continue our mission to serve all Singaporeans. Thank you residents for your continued support!

Reading the original Twitter posts by the girl’s sister brought tears to my eyes and made my blood boil. What was not mentioned in the ST article was how the little girl was allegedly called a “black dustbin” and that she resorted to having her recess in the toilet because it was the “best place for (her) to cry and eat at the same time”. While details of these alleged incidents are still unclear and I’m sure the school and MOE are investigating, I think this should spark some soul-searching among all Singaporeans, especially us parents (my children are around that age). What values are we inculcating in our children? Do we harbour racist attitudes and inadvertently pass them on to our children? Do we teach our children to stand up to bullies, even if they are not the victims?

Straits Times article: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/bullying-in-schools-here-wrong-and-cannot-be-tolerated-ong-ye-kung

Glad Leon Perera asked this Parliamentary Question (PQ). It arose after my conversation with a teacher during house visits in Fengshan. This teacher voiced concern that the number of classroom teaching assistants was being reduced. I was surprised to hear this and decided to look deeper into the issue together with my colleagues from The Workers’ Party. It resulted in Leon‘s PQ. He didn’t just stop when he got the initial answer, but continued to press the Parl Sec for the detailed numbers.

This highlights the value of the ground feedback we receive from residents. If you meet our MPs and volunteers when they drop by your place during house visits, please raise up such issues of concern to us so we can bring them to Parliament for debate. We work as one #TeamWP to be your voice in Parliament!

(TLDR: There are 4 categories of AEDs. The headcount in one of the categories, AED (Teaching and Learning), is indeed being reduced while those in the other 3 categories is being increased.)

Video credit: CNA

Live Chat with Gerald Giam 严燕松, discussing about Budget 2020.

Posted by The Workers' Party Youth Wing (WPYW) on Thursday, 5 March 2020

This is a video of my 1-hour live chat with Singaporeans on Workers’ Party’s responses to Singapore Budget 2020.

Video credit: Workers’ Party Youth Wing

恭喜发财！We enjoyed our 5th year painting Fengshan ORANGE, greeting residents of all races a Happy Lunar New Year and and wishing them good health in the year ahead. As before, it was our volunteers who made it all happen! Thank you to all the residents and stallholders who showered us with their own New Year greetings. 新年快乐！

We’re always so blessed by the smiles and words of encouragement from Fengshan residents we visit each month. Some insist on offering us drinks even though we tell them we just got some from other residents.  #generosity

No time to read our full 60-page Public Housing working paper? Here’s a good summary by a Singaporean journalist writing for South China Morning Post. You can read the full working paper at http://www.wp.sg/…/WP-Working-Paper-on-HDB-Resale-Prices.pdf

LTA’s latest statement, Investigation Findings on Train Collision at Joo Koon MRT Station, raises more questions than it answers (but good work by the civil servants and SMRT/Thales engineers who put it together). We learned that the two “protective bubbles” around the train both went down long before it was hit. These protective bubbles are critical safety features that alert nearby trains to stop, so as to avoid collisions. LTA’s graphic (part 2) indicates that the first protective bubble went down as soon as the train left Ulu Pandan depot (located between Jurong East and Clementi) due to an “abnormal condition.” Then it was “unexpectedly disabled” when it passed by a “trackside device” at Clementi (while heading east towards Pasir Ris).

1. What caused the protective bubbles go down? What are these trackside devices? Why are they permitted to disable a critical safety feature on a train? And what was the “abnormal condition” that caused the first bubble to go down?

2. Once the second bubble went down, by design an 18 km/h speed restriction was imposed by the new signalling system, which was operating in passive mode. But LTA said the train continued to travel under the old signalling system. So was the 18 km/h speed restriction ignored?

3. Why wasn’t the train automatically brought to a stop or slowed down when the protective bubbles went down? Was an alarm triggered to the Ops Centre?

4. Why did the train continue travelling for almost 2 hours (49 stations) from Clementi to Pasir Ris and back to Pioneer before the driver noticed something was amiss?

5. The NEL and DTL are driverless, unlike the EWL. What happens if the protective bubble goes down on those trains?

6. How many times has this protective bubble gone down without anyone noticing and the trains continued operating? The statement said that the new signalling system runs in the background in passive mode between Pioneer and Pasir Ris to “collect data for the purpose of performance monitoring.” So there should be logs to trace back the answer. If the answer is “it has gone down many times”, then this accident was not “bad luck”, but it was “good luck” that there weren’t more accidents earlier on.

7. Once the train arrived at Joo Koon and was de-training all its passengers, why was the next train allowed to come within 36 m, if the stationary train’s protective bubble was gone? A train approaching the platform at 50 km/h will take less than 2.6 sec to cover 36 m. Is it SOP for trains to get so close before stopping?

8. Lastly, did anyone tell the driver of the train behind that the train ahead had no protective bubble? Evidently not, because he didn’t think anything was amiss and therefore did not react in time when he realised the train was lurching forward.