For every life, a little rain must fall.

If only I can 'tekan' the Chua sisters, Paul Jacobs of ST and Clarence Chang of TNP like Xenoboy and Andrew Low of TOC with such cool logic and precision.


If only. . .

Then fedupwithST who wrote in Xenoboy's blog said...

I wrote the following to the Straits Times , and as expected , received a reply that they have too many letters and sorry mine would not be published; lol !

I refer to your article (ST Apr 26 2008) titled "That escape: Crucial issues aplenty, so let's move on" by Ms Chua Lee Hoong . While I have found some internet postings blood boiling, they pale in comparison with the following points made in your article:

1) But the Mas Selamat escape? What loss has there been, except that of face - mostly?

I beg to differ with that point. Here is a man who was considered dangerous enough to be detained in a supposed high security detention centre (without trial since 2006) because he planned to fly a plane into Changi Airport and bomb the US Embassy. How then can his escape be just a loss of face ? Is the Straits Times suggesting that the Home Team was over-stating the danger that this man posed ? If so , then I'm afraid the Home Team and ISD have just wasted a lot of tax payers' money , not just with his detention but with the searches that caused traffic jams and resultant losses in time, manpower and money. Is Ms Chua not concerned that this man still poses a threat to Singapore's security ?

2)The escape has been a big stain on the reputation of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). But it has been a lesser stain on the reputation of Singapore.

Was I the only one who read the reports published in the International Herald Tribune and New York Times that cast Singapore in an embarrassing light over that escape? The following excerpts from IHT dd 21 April:

"His escape has been a major embarrassment for the government, which has not been able to capture Mas Selamat, its most-wanted man, despite a nationwide manhunt. Thousands of wanted posters hung around Singapore are a daily reminder of the failure.........The report described what appeared to have been a carefully planned but remarkably simple escape that took advantage of small errors in a fairly relaxed prison routine as the prisoner was being escorted to a weekly visit from his family. It seemed to substantiate the one-word analysis of the escape given last month by a former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew: complacency."

And excerpts from New York Times dd 14 Mar 2008 :

"With each new empty-handed day the embarrassment deepens as Singapore confronts its Tora Bora moment, its most-wanted terrorist suspect melting into the urban terrain, as Osama bin Laden evaded American troops in Afghanistan. For some people here, this noisy, flailing search ¡ª even more than the escape itself ¡ª has cast Singapore in an unfamiliar light of haplessness...............

As a nation, Singapore is as lean and mean and flexible as the rapid-response military the Pentagon dreams of, and it reacted with impressive speed and agility to recent Asian outbreaks of bird flu and SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. But for the moment it seems to have met its match in Mr. Mas Selamat. His disappearance challenges the government's basic promise to its citizens that it will keep them safe and comfortable."

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said that Singaporeans needed a dose of bad government to appreciate that Ministers need to be paid top dollar. "That escape", as Ms Chua calls it, has proven that despite the high salary , we still can get a dose of bad government... and it is not helped by the fact that we have insufficient opposition members in parliament nor an independent press to keep the ruling party on its toes.

Who's been complacent ? The ordinary Singaporean ? The Gurkha guards ? I recall the Malaysian who walked across the causeway after murdering Huang Na and Richard Yong's "escape" after the NKF affair and I have to conclude that there has been complacency in the Home Team. Are netizens taking things out of perspective and forgetting all the good the Home Team has done ? Do sacked CEOs justify staying on because of past glories ?

The main stream media do no justice to Singaporeans by being the ruling party's mouthpieces. Your article lends further credence to Cherian George's article "The Other Casualty of the Great Escape - Mainstream Media Credibility". I liked his last line "Treating citizens as if they were brain-dead will not make them so; they will simply migrate to other media that take them more seriously."

Ms Chua and editors of the Straits Times - please treat the citizens of Singapore with more respect. We are not brain dead. And the more you write articles like this , the more you turn Singaporeans off the mainstream media.

Wow, looks like the vitriol is getting more vitriolic! So much so that this fedupwithST guy took the effort to write to ST which ST does not have the balls to print. Truth hurts?

I do not know if I "feed on other netizen's vitriol" as stated by Chua Lee Hoong of ST (which I found out to mean feed on sulphuric acid or bitterly abusive feeling or expression) but I do know that Xenoboy is right. This angry woman cannot defend her ex-boss and she is bitterly scathing and caustic (vitriolic?) to bloggers because exasperation and hopelessness has set in and blind faith and balls carrying is losing out to the light of truth!

Satisfaction lies with the fact that an 'O' level Kopitiam Ah Pek like me (who needs to look up dictionary so often) can make the ST's political editor's blood boil! I feel my "outrageous, snide, rabble-rousers" rants finally pay off! I feel validated. I feel good!

For what it's worth, I'm glad that Mas Selamat's saga happened. No, I do not wish any harm upon my fellow Singaporeans, my loved ones or myself. I just feel good that he can create more embarrassment and "what-hit-me" panic to the self proclaimed first world leaders than JB Jeyaratnam, Francis Seow, Chee Soon Juan, Martyn See and MrBrown put together!

For all their hubris, they must now learn that "for every life, a little rain must fall". Some had cancer, some had lymphoma, some got run over by car. Some get slapped big time by Mas Selamat Kasturi!

There is such a thing as Pay Back Time!

I know so.

I paid.

I paid with a heart attack, being flatlined and defibrillated when I refused to heed the advice of loved ones who told me not to burn my candle at both ends! My life almost expired in the middle! Yes, I was also ran over by a car!


After the Mas saga and the sneaky exploitative discount scams, they still have the audacity to wayang and waste $40,000 to change NTUC to"U". Acting like Supermen but looking like clowns will not help improve credibility!

Do they not know that:
When I lose my wealth, I lose nothing;
When I lose my health, I lose something;
When I lose my integrity, I lose everything.

When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the flowers gone?

Then again, like CPF, Mas Selamat may just be another mirage after all.

We can't touch our CPF and we (especially ISD and Ghurkas) can't see Mas Selamat!

Except for the brazenly callous, thick-skinned, power hungry and balls carrying cowards, all MIW must be trying very hard to believe and accept the COI and the presentation in parliament by both LHL and WKS. Those with a heart and a conscience must have smelled a fish.


feedmetothefish