TRS Editor: Who is Robin Yang?

SG Leaks has some disturbing news about Robin Yang, one of the TRS editors charged with sedition.

Click SG Leaks for full story.

TRS Editors Ai Takagi and Robin Yang Charged with Sedition Act

On 4 February 2015, www.therealsingapore.com (TRS) published an article they claimed was from a contributor that reported that during the Thaipusam festivities, an incident was sparked off by a Filipino complaining to police about noise.

Subsequently, the named contributor clarified on another site that the allegations that a Filipino family was involved were untrue. A police report was made and investigations were carried out.

Ai Takagi and Robin Yang Kai Heng were then identified to be the people jointly responsible for the creation, development and maintenance of content on TRS. As a result of their deliberate attempt to create animosity between Singaporeans and Filipinos and Indians, the two have been charged under the Sedition Act.

Further investigations by the Police revealed that TRS had also routinely published various other articles that have the tendency to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of the population of Singapore.

In the course of investigations, Police identified that the motive for Takagi and Robin's actions was purely monetary. As TRS works on a traffic revenue advertising model, the higher the traffic, the higher their earnings. Takagi and Robin thus deliberately added xenophobic falsehoods, to sensationalize their articles, to make money. In this instance, they added the reference to Pinoy family to the contributor's article. Takagi and Yang Kai Heng do this regularly (i.e. fanning xenophobia), for the sole purpose of making money at the expense of Singaporeans.

As Takagi and Robin Yang's seditious remarks were made at the expense of Singapore’s collective social harmony, the Police had no choice but to take action. In fact, investigations showed that they were both overseas when they committed some of the offences and had taken steps to settle down in Australia. They thus had no stake in Singapore and were not concerned about the implications of their greed to Singaporeans.

With regards to claims that TRS is a news website and should thus be allowed to report "the news", Singaporeans must be clear that TRS is not a news website. TRS is a social website that re-angles mainstream media news with its own slant for the authors’ self-interest, ie. money. Legitimate news websites adhere to a code of conduct to be objective and factual, which was clearly lacking in TRS' case.

Singaporeans need to stand firm in our efforts to stop foreigners (with no stake or interest in Singapore) from destroying our future.

More TRS Lies ... The Peak

Statement from RC to residents at The Peak @ Toa Payoh

The Real Singapore earlier reported that the Residents’ Committee (RC) at The Peak@Toa Payoh wanted to build an RC centre at the void deck despite a majority of the residents had objected to this. Here is a statement from The Peak RC countering those lies.

What many seem to forget is that ...

"Democracy is about accepting and doing what the MAJORITY want. It is not about pandering to the whims and fancies of the individual."

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Dear Residents,

Please allow us to correct some of the prevailing misconceptions on the RC centre.

1. It is not true that 87% of the residents are against the RC Centre. Based on a door to door survey conducted by RC members in May/June of 2014, more than 80% of responding residents were in favour and gave feedback on the type of activities they would like at the RC centre. We note that the person(s) claiming that 87% of residents were against did not give details of their survey.

2. There will only be one RC centre. However to accommodate some residents’ concerns on safety and security, as well as to ensure sufficient lighting at the void deck of block 139B, the Centre was split into two smaller areas – one at Block 139B and the other at the Key Collection Centre.

3. RC centres are typically up to a floor size of 160sqm. In light of concerns by residents on lighting and security, the RC Centre was reduced to a total size of 77sqm + 72sqm (total of 149sqm).

4. A single location at the Key Collection Centre would not be sufficiently meaningful for the community. It is not big enough to accommodate community activities. This small site was only selected to allow the reduction of the space at Block 139b to accommodate some residents’ feedback.

5. Safety and security concerns have been addressed (which have resulted in a smaller centre at the primary location under 139B). The residents will continue to have their loading bays. All the relevant agencies, including the Fire and Safety Department, have approved the plans.

6. The only objection which has not been addressed is that made by some residents that the RC Centre will devalue their property. However, we note that RC Centres in all HDB precincts are located at void decks. This is no different.

7. The proposed uses for the RC centre include having a playgroup for young children as well as enrichment courses/tuition services for older children in the estate. There are also some ideas to open up one of the locations as a function room for residents to book for private events as an option aside from the Pavilion. The RC is confident that there is an appetite for activities and events for the RC centre by residents.

8. To help residents better visualise the RC Centre at 139b, we attach a 3D model of the revised centre. We have also put up a video that will take you through the lobby of 139b to the centre.

9. We thank residents for their feedback, which has resulted in significant changes to the original plans.

Please direct any further queries on the RC centre or suggestions you may have on types of activities you would like to see at the RC centre to yourpeakrc@gmail.com

Thank you for your kind attention.

Salaries of Singapore Ministers – A rational look

A rational look at Ministerial Salary 

The issue of high Ministerial Salaries is making its rounds again - likely stirred by the opposition as this is seen as a “pain point” for the electorate. An analysis of the arguments and “perceived public consternation” (as highlighted by NSP) reveals that the consternation is purely emotive and comes from the logic that “my leaders need to be poor to help the poor.”

Unfortunately, there is a price to pay for capable leadership. If there is not, then why do MNCs pay their CEO millions? The world of business and government is complex. Being attuned to what the masses want is not enough. One needs to also have the intellect and the ability to not only see the bigger picture, but to also navigate and steer the organization or country through the complexities of a chaotic environment. Having heart, while good, only makes you a popular leader. It does not necessarily make you a capable leader.

In keeping with the spirit of public service, many of our Ministers had given up much higher salaries. For example, Minister K Shanmugan used to earn $6 million per year as a top lawyer, Dr Ng Eng Hen around $4 million per year as a surgeon and President Tony Tan $5 million as the Chairman of Singapore Press Holdings.

If this is not enough to convince you on the value of our Minister, ex-cabinet Minister George Yeo earned S$1.6 million as Chairman of Kerry Logistics in 2013. Taken in context and with all the facts, a logical response to the issue of Ministerial Salaries is that our Ministers are fairly paid.

Singapore Budget 2015: Ministerial salaries have not risen in past three years

SINGAPORE - Political salaries have not gone up in the last three years even as the benchmark they are linked to has risen by around 3 per cent per year over the period, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean told Parliament on Tuesday.

The House had, in 2012, endorsed recommendations from an independent committee to link ministerial salaries to the median income of the top 1,000 earners who are Singaporean citizens, with a 40 per cent discount to reflect the ethos of political service.

Since then, this benchmark has risen in two out of three years, and dropped slightly in one year. Overall, it rose 3 per cent per year, said Mr Teo.

"Because the changes in the benchmark have been moderate, we have not adjusted political salaries in these past three years," he said.

Based on the latest figures, the benchmark salary for a minister at entry "MR4" grade, inclusive of bonuses, should be $1.2 million per year, but the Government has kept it at $1.1 million - the 2012 level, he added.

The Prime Minister earns $2.2 million and the President earns $1.54 million.

In 2012, Parliament also endorsed doing away with pensions for politicians.

Mr Teo was speaking during the debate over the budget for the Prime Minister's Office. MP Edwin Tong (Moulmein-Kallang GRC) had asked whether it was timely to review the framework by which political salaries are determined.

Since 2011, "the formula has remained stable and has worked well," said Mr Teo.

"The Committee (to Review Ministerial Salaries) recommended that the salary framework be reviewed every five years, but given that things have been stable, we believe the framework remains valid, and we can continue to adjust salaries within this framework should there be a change in overall salary levels in subsequent years."

Mr Teo also emphasised that in the 2012 debate, the opposition Workers' Party (WP) agreed with the three key principles the Committee used to derive political salaries. They are:

- that salaries must be competitive so that people of the right calibre are not deterred from stepping forward to lead the country

- that the ethos of political service entails making sacrifices and hence there should be a discount in the pay formula

- that there should be a "clean wage" with no hidden perks

During the 2012 parliamentary debate, the WP had proposed an alternative formula of benchmarking MPs' salaries to the starting pay of the "Superscale" grade in the civil service, and to make ministers' salaries a multiple of MPs' allowance.

This would be about $55,000 a month for ministers, an amount Mr Teo noted on Tuesday was at the same level as the Committee's recommendations.

Martyn See Makes Police Report - Ulterior Motives

In a false act of standing-up for Singapore Indians, failed Singaporean film-maker Martyn See has made a police report against MP Lam Pin Min for an allegedly seditious Facebook comment.

We must however see Martyn See's actions for what it truly is - a deliberate attempt to subvert the course of justice.

It is telling that Martyn's decision to make the report came more than 3 weeks after MP Lam Pin Min's post, but only 4 days after the editors of The Real Singapore (TRS) was arrested for sedition. It is also telling that Martyn stretched and convoluted the truth to accuse MP Lam of sedition - the same charges that the editors for TRS were arrested for.

Given Martyn's close connections to TRS, the fact that no Indians saw MP Lam's comments as seditious, and the fact that Martyn has never championed minority rights in his career, Martyn's police report reeks of ULTERIOR MOTIVES. In our opinion, Martyn (and probably the editors of TRS) are falsely filing a police report in the hopes of subverting the course of justice. In their warped minds, they mistakenly believe that by implicating MP Lam Pin Min, it will save the editors of TRS.

Like many Singaporeans, we at SG Bumiputera are elated that the police has finally taken actions against the editors of TRS. TRS is a site that deliberately mis-represents the truth in a calculated attempt to incite xenophobia. Ironically, while they claim to be the voice of average Singaporeans, TRS is run by foreigners. Similar to the fate of the TRS editors, we hope that after its due process, the Singapore Police Force will also take actions against Martyn See for making a false report.

TOC Censors Negative Comments

In typical opposition fashion, where facts are distorted for the purpose of stirring anti-government sentiments, The Online Citizen has accused Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for hiding negative comments on his Facebook page.

SG Bumiputera is once again curious why there is a double standard. When we were threatened with arrest and legal actions by NSP' Ravi Philemon, we tried to tell our story on The Online Citizen. We were however disappointed that we were blocked from posting anything on TOC's wall. The above screen shots (on the right) will prove our point.

In short, unless you are abiding by the same standards as you demand of others, you have no right to say anything.

The Real Singapore Misleads Singapore: Chew Thiam Kwee

On 9 September 2015, The Real Singapore (TRS) continued its efforts to deceive Singaporeans with an article titled “The Civil Service is “Politically Neutral” but many Civil Servants Are PAP Members”.

The articled was based on the sudden discovery that Dr Lam Pin Min’s, Member of Parliament (MP) for Sengkang West SMC, Branch Secretary is a Senior Manager at NParks, specifically at the Centre for Urban Greenery and Ecology department.

TRS then goes on to argue that one of the fundamental principles of the Civil Service is political neutrality and quoted the Public Service Division (PSD) which defines it to mean “remaining completely neutral in all political matters and matters of public controversy”.

Where TRS is wholly wrong is that NParks is not part of the civil service, but is instead a statutory board. Statutory boards are separate entities from the formal government structure and are set-up to achieve multiple economic goals. Statutory boards are expected to generate their own funds from their activities, and can thus be considered like a private business entity. As such, Mr Chew Thiam Kwee (the “Senior Civil Servant” in TRS’ article is not a civil servant.

As a Singaporean, Mr Chew therefore has the same right as anyone else to support the political party he believes is necessary for Singapore's continued success and survival.

Once again, TRS has shown their contempt for the truth in their deliberate misreporting of the facts on political activities in Singapore.

Bumiputra

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Reference:
National Parks Board
Singapore Statutory Boards

The Real Singapore (TRS) Says that Neutral Singaporeans are Getting Tired of Anti-PAP Opinions

TRS reported on 4 Jan 2015 that NEUTRAL SINGAPOREANS ARE GETTING TIRED OF ANTI-PAP ARTICLES ...

Compared to a year ago, opinion pieces slamming the PAP government would easily garner hundreds of likes and Facebook shares. It would also be widely commented. While I do not have the luxury of creating a comparative spreadsheet, a simple bit of investigative work by any curious reader will prove my point. Why is this happening and what does it mean?

It appears that after some time, TRS readers have grown tired of reading the same sort of anti-PAP articles, and while popular opinion pieces by the likes of Leong Sze Hian and Roy Ngerng continue to garner relatively more attention, anti-PAP article viewership has fallen evenly across all segments. This is not to say that the pieces written today are worse off than before, in fact I would say that they might even be better, more informed, more articulate. It is only a case of human nature to slowly turn off to the same things day by day. However, it's noticeable that scandalous articles such as those about Jover Chew or corruption cases or city harvest will still continue to receive very high readership. This is something we all know and can understand why. Additionally to clarify, if readers think I'm a PAP supporter or have some agenda writing this, please understand I'm only making an observation. Back to the topic, what does this all mean?

First understand that voting is emotional. Prior to elections, political parties fight hard to win the hearts of the people. If Singaporeans are at this stage seemingly apathetic to anti-PAP articles compared to a year ago, this would mean a harder time for the opposition to gain support. Note that I'm not saying they won't get support, but it will be decreased to a certain degree. I also want readers to note something equally important. TRS articles are read and shared by many more, possibly even 100 times more, than the people who comment on those articles. People who comment on anti-PAP articles are largely supportive of the writer. What these two things mean is that while TRS viewership continues to command the support of die hard opposition fans/anti pap fans, the significantly larger number of swing voters are becoming increasingly indifferent.

At the end of the day, these swing voters, which could easily make up 30% of the voting population, are going to vote based on their heart. They may be aware of the good and the bad of the PAP, but few of them possess the analytical and technical know-how to really decide which party has better and viable policies and services to offer, not just the nice-sounding ones. What this means is that they will vote based on whatever captures their heart in the last 3-5 months leading to the elections, with stronger emphasis being on the last 2 weeks. If TRS readers are, in general, growing apathetic to anti-PAP articles, the influence that these articles have on swing voters hearts will be diminished. To bring up a simple example, if Election Day was held during the Roy Ngerng saga, I'm quite sure that the PAP would have lost more votes compared to if it was held today. Hype plays a large role. Add to that the fact that the PAP are coming up with all sort of nice things to appease voters. While we cannot say what the election outcome will be, all these factors will play a part, even if in a small way, to diminishing the number of opposition votes.

Make no mistake that it can be very easy to believe that anti-PAP sentiments are high, higher than before, by reading TRS and the hateful comments being posted. The fact is that most of these anti-PAP commenters are usually the same people. To name a few, Ken Lau, William Lee, Allan Tan, Haziq, Vto PAP, etc. I doubt there's more than 50 regular PAP flamers, perhaps not even more than 30. That's a very insignificant number in the voting population. Of course it's also true that there are anti-PAP readers who don't comment, and perhaps don't even visit this site regularly. But compared to the number of swing voters which could easily number 1-2 million, I don't think we should hastily conclude the PAP is losing support by what we read on TRS. Take the xiaxua vs gushcloud saga for example, those articles were blasted left right and centre and liked/shared tens of thousands of times, many times more what anti-PAP articles usually get, and I'm saying to simply to show you that there's a very huge reading population out there that our anti-PAP articles do not seem to have gotten in touch with or captured yet.

Many TRS articles, in my opinion, have lost credibility because they come across as one-sided ranting. A large number of people usually skip these articles, not because they are bad articles, but because they've already seen these kinds of articles before. They know its just going to be another article that badgers the PAP. Such articles used to be popular because of the notoriety and empathy it had. People who hated the PAP needed such articles to feel understood and validated. Not anymore. For TRS anti-PAP readership and support to improve, writings must begin to take on a non-biased value-adding format. This means articles can be written by people who argue that the PAP is a lousy government, but must show that they are impartial and even-handed in their reasoning. They cannot carry on to give all-con-no-pro type of writings.

Additionally, such articles must value-add to readers by telling them something they didn't know before. It cannot be purely opinionated. These two things will serve to bolster the credibility and meaningfulness of the articles and keep viewership and support strong. Lastly, the community here needs to be more respectful to one another. A large number of commenters here seems to be enemies with everyone. PAP supporter they shoot, anti-PAP supporter they also shoot(but not as often), people writing about their hardship they shoot, people writing neutral articles also they shoot. When a person complains about losing a job, instead of showing encouragement, they say he deserves it for voting the PAP. Even commenters shoot themselves. And by the word 'shoot', I mean ad hominem attacks like calling the person stupid, no guts, insulting his father/mother, vulgarities, calling them Paul Lampards, without actually respecting his views and opinions and disagreeing in a polite way. And also calling the writer a coward for not revealing his identity when he posts something(There are of course, a few exceptions where it is justified). All in all, the culture and atmosphere here needs to change to one that is positive, intellectual, understanding, and mature.

We all know that elections are coming soon. I encourage anyone, whether a PAP support or opposition supporter, to take things to the next level by doing what you can to make sure that your party wins. And also please share your thoughts about what I have written in a friendly way. Good luck.

A Concerned Citizen

The Real Singapore Facebook Misleads Singaporeans - Josephine Teo

The Real Singapore (TRS) Facebook misleads Singaporeans with their deliberately false and inflammatory headlines. In their battle to turn Singaporeans against the People's Action Party (PAP), the anti-Government Facebook page and website of TRS deliberately misquotes government officials in an obvious attempt to discredit them.

The Real Singapore Misquotes Ms Josephine Teo

This form of headline misinformation campaign is common in cyberspace as the huge deluge of information results in netizens only skimming the titles of each article. By only reading the headlines, a false perception of the Government is thus created in the minds of innocent Singaporeans.

While the TRS claims to be the Voices of Average Singaporeans, their constant and consistent misrepresentation of the truth alludes to their sinister motive. The team at Singapore General Election (GE) 2016 is concerned that innocent Singaporeans are being misled and will dedicate a series of posts (titled "How The Real Singapore Misleads Singaporeans") to counter the misinformation of TRS.

We hope that you will join us in fighting this misinformation campaign by sharing our links with your friends and relatives. Singapore GE 2016 will be a social media election and it is important that Singaporeans go to the polls armed with the truth. Our future and the future of our families will be determined at the polls and we cannot afford to allow the misguided (and malicious) actions of the minority jeopardize our lives.