Letter from a Grassroots Leader to PM [From PAP Confessions FB Page]

I read this note from PAP Confessions Facebook Page and honestly, i believe many Singaporeans including myself agree to some points this annonymous Mr. Tan Ah Kow says.

Some excepts from the post;

"You see, I’m a business leader too. I know what its like to be surrounded by people reporting to you, who are naturally disposed to tell you what you want to hear. Or are all molded in the same way. I am outside your – sorry to use this word, “bubble” – so from the outside, sometimes, I can see things a bit more clearly."

"Its almost like you are burying your head in the sand, when it comes to examples that do not fit with your idealized notion of how it should have been. We do not exist in that alternate reality. When I think through these parts of your speech, I actually wonder if you are disconnected from us."


"You may not realise this, but in our public spaces – like the MRT, bus, Chinatown, Little India etc – we Singaporeans already no longer feel we are in the majority. My children tell me of attending classes in University, where Singaporeans are the minority and they feel they are in a foreign country. Do you realise that in some offices, large cliques of Filipinos or North Indians prevail, and they tend to hire their own?"

"You see, you work in the Civil Service –when you look out of your office, everywhere you look, you see Singaporeans. It is not like that in many other offices. How do you “watch the numbers” when you do not even have an accurate sense of the current ground reality?"

"Some of the lousiest emperors in China surrounded themselves with eunuchs who told the emperor what he wanted to hear. Some of the best, like Qian Long, disguised himself as a commoner to understand the true situation on the ground."

Read the full note/article here