Minister Josephine Teo teared yesterday. It is not a good time for everyone. The tears spoke for itself. Earlier in the fight against Covid, Minister Lawrence Wong teared too.
Alas, covid brings out the worst and the best in us. It also brings out the struggles, pain and heartaches. The tears, not just in Parliament but at homes, in offices, at empty stalls, and in ghostly airport terminals are all viscerally felt in the soul of a smart nation, fighting a seemingly even smarter virus.
Mrs Teo said: “We know that in your hearts, you care most about the well-being of your families and loved ones. You want to do well not just for yourself, but for them.”
“Please know that you too are always in our hearts.” (She then “pledges that the ministry will journey with them no matter how long the crisis lasts”).
“However tough it may be, we will help you bounce back. Our mission is to help each one of you emerge stronger, by never giving up hope, and by working with employers in Singapore to treat you fairly, to make your hard work bear fruit.”
God bless her heart, and I trust she meant every single word.
However, here’s the ”but”, and I guess you might have been expecting it right? Yet this “but” is not an indictment, but a call to get the “citizens’ buy-in” on what the government is doing by providing “more data”. FYI, those words were used by NMP Leong Mum Wai.
Here is the full extract as a backdrop: “The foreign talent model, which involves the competition for jobs in our own territory, is especially sensitive,” as such Leong called for more data to get citizens’ buy-in.”
If you need a word for that, it is called “transparency”. And for security and sensitivity sake, you don’t even need to discuss it so openly in Parliament. Pritam Singh even suggested this: “...to have more Select Committees as a safety valve, so that positive conversations - closed-door or otherwise - can be had on sensitive issues.”
However, on that transparency part, I think Mrs Teo had unfortunately shed more heat than light on the issues on the competition for jobs in our own territory. Here is the part I flesh out on the “But” part of her tearful concerns.
In a spar over efforts to protect local PMETs, Leong asked her how her ministry plans to protect local PMETs from being displaced by foreigners. Leong brought out the stats that previous data shows that the number of PR and new citizens was around 50,000 a year. He then asked Mrs Teo for some clarification.
Here is what was reported. (Mind you, I was not at the parliamentary debates or seen it in full. So I rely on what is reported).
“Mrs Teo acknowledged that around 20,000 people become citizens every year, while another 30,000 becomes PRs (that adds up to 50,000). “I think what Mr Leong is trying to suggest is that all of your gains are meaningless because they are all occupied by PRs and citizens.””
At this point, I really don’t think Leong was suggesting that. It is a rather sweeping statement because it was phrased as “ALL of your gains are meaningless”.
Good faith in parliamentary debate would demand that we answer another on the assumption that his/her intention is for the well-being of the constituent he or she represents. While I am not so naive to think that the questioner is wholly innocent, the proper decorum would however take the position to assume that that is the case nevertheless. This is not a cloak-and-dagger session, but a debate-and-move-forward session.
To be fair, Mrs Teo did explain it when she said that a significant number of this 50,000 (new citizens and PRs) are “not part of the workforce, while others are married to citizens. One in three marriages now is between a citizen and non-citizen.”
Yet, notwithstanding that, here is another turret fired. “Is Mr Leong suggesting that these new citizens are any less of a citizen? Is Mr Leong suggesting therefore that we should discount them, not include them?”
Well, again, I don’t think anyone with a sense of grounded reality and compassion is suggesting that “these new citizens are any less of a citizen”. In any event, let’s move on, because the manpower minister is just powering up.
At one point, she “suggested that Singaporeans should instead look at the bigger picture of the increased proportion of locals in PMET jobs, and decide if this is an “amazing accomplishment” not easily achieved elsewhere.””
Pardon me, but I can’t help but to feel that what the people on the ground, whom Mrs Teo had said were going through tough times and “care most about the well-being of (their) families and loved ones”, wanted to know were the relevant data concerning (amongst other things) why their own children after graduation are struggling to get a job after looking for months for one, and not so much that she and her ministry have scored an “amazing accomplishment not easily achieved elsewhere.”
While the accomplishment is undeniable to some extent, and I applaud the effort, I nevertheless believe that those tears shed before parliamentarians and the people at large are one for the pain they feel, their struggles and how to “help (them) to bounce back...and emerge stronger”, and not so much tears (or joy) to remind us to celebrate the “amazing accomplishments” our government has done during this trying covid time right?
And I know we all have to look at the bigger picture, but for those who doesn’t have the resource to do so, and are worrying about whether they will ever find a job to support their young family or those who worry whether they will be fired tomorrow, the picture for them is a whole lot narrower than those who have absolute financial security stored up for their lifetime and their children’s lifetime.
So it is hoped that our minister will understand that the picture up there is always brighter and wider than the picture down here.
But that’s not all. Strap up for the next part as reported.
Leong said that “his issue was with the impact of each year’s crop of new citizens and PRs on the existing population. If there are 50,000 new citizens and PRs each year, but the number of locals in PMET jobs increases by only 35,000, then there is an undeniable pressure on the PMET job market...So the situation is not as rosy as what you have painted.”
At this point, to give credit due, Mrs Teo acknowledged Leong’s point, but she went full throttle with this: -
“They have family (not part of the workforce point). Are we to say: “Please don’t work. Please be out of the workforce,” she asked. “I don’t believe Mr Leong is saying that at all.””
Well, if Mr Leong didn’t say that at all, then saying it doesn’t make it less of what Mr Leong didn’t say that at all. In fact, by her suggesting it (“please be out of the workforce”), Mrs Teo came off to me as defensive, and as one who was avoiding the issue.
She then continued: “However, this constant obsession - if I may put it that way - with drawing lines, I’m not sure is good for us as a society...It is not that the question cannot be asked, but I think we have to search our hearts and ask ourselves before asking these questions: what is our thinking? What is our attitude? And what is the value that we are expressing by even putting this question forward?”
This is the part where Leong rose again, but decided to move on when Speaker Tan Chuan-Jin pointedly asked him - “if he was going to answer the minister’s questions. “It’s fine if you don’t want to answer the question posed to you.””
I guess Leong didn’t want to push the issue, recalling that Mrs Teo had categorised it as a “constant obsession...with drawing lines” and whether that is even “good for us as a society”.
Well, something inside of me tells me that we should let the people who know better run the government. But then, another part of me seeks the answer to this question - “when it comes to transparency, with the aim of creating trust and building bond, isn’t what is constant obsession to one real-time trauma to another?” Anyway, recall that Leong asked for “more data to get citizens’ buy-in”?
To me, that was a golden opportunity for Mrs Teo to put the sympathy of tears into the clarity of words by addressing the issue in a manner that assures and generates more understanding rather than turning the turret around (as if she and her “amazing achievements” were under attack) and answer the questions with questions bordering on challenging the intention/integrity of the questioner. Recall good faith discussion?
But, again, that’s not all. At this point, in comes the guy-next-door who warms the cockles of our hearts.
Professor Jamus Lim asked whether “if the Government believes that slowing down the growth of EP and S Pass holders is sufficient to prevent local PMETs from getting displaced”.
Jamus added that “it is misleading to compare both numbers, given that the overall base numbers in both groups are different. This means the slowdown in the growth rate of EP and S Pass holders is “less dramatic” than what Mrs Teo said.””
“Many PMET positions may have already been filled by foreigners, making it no surprise that the required number of EP and S Pass holders has gone down.”
Here is what (as reported) Mrs Teo said in reply: “I merely stated the facts, I did not say that one contributed to the other. I stated the facts; this is what they were.”
Well, with respect, I believe we have to go beyond the facts to ask what are the consequences, intended or unintended, going by those facts. In other words, going by those facts, and how Singaporeans’ concerns for job security are rising, especially during such time, I trust Jamus’ concern was not about not seeing the bigger picture, but his concern may be to ask, “is it possible that we are not seeing the part of the picture that matters?”
And I believes Jamus hopes, in a constructive debate, to bring out that part of the picture for discussion so that there would not just be a deeper understanding of the issues at hand, but they, as opposition MPs, will then be able to return to their constitutency to assure them that the government is solving the problem and moving ahead in the right direction, together.
For trust has to be built up conscientiously in Parliament via good-faith discussion before that same trust can be spread out amongst the people. And when suspicion should abound at the highest level, you can’t expect the same suspicion not to be lurking at the lower level.
So, let me end with Mrs Teo’s own words. I started this post with her tears, which I believe were genuine. Let me thus end with this persuasion from her to look at the bigger picture.
“It is well and good to say it’s all about information transparency, (but) what sort of values are we trying to reflect in asking these questions?”
Alas, the reality is, as senior political correspondent Grace Ho puts it, “by the time the first half of the session ended, it was not clear that the exchange had achieved any more clarity on the matter.”
Taking from her cue, maybe the people Leong and Jamus represent are not asking for wholesale information transparency, and they understand that the big picture is important. Yet, at times of such uncertainty, where concerns and fears writ large, what is needed is not just words pointing to “we know best” and “trust in our amazing accomplishments”. What the people need however is some clarity, some light at the end of the tunnel, so that together we can endure what is to be endured, knowing that it is just for a season.
And for this reason, it would definitely help if those at the top of the summit can reflect some light from up there to down here so that less of us would grope in the dark, speculating about their good intention.
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