I remembered a memorable quote from the movie Spiderman, which was an advice from Uncle Ben to Peter Parker AKA Spiderman:”With great power, comes great responsibility”. The pertinent question is - are those in power well-equipped enough to take on such great responsibilities? — Kelvin Teo (Kent Ridge Common)
And with that paragraph, Kelvin Teo ends his miserably thought out article covering the recent incident involving the 17 year old who slammed an aluminium chair against a glass door twice at MP Cynthia Phua’s Meet the People’s session.
Let us first address his fundamental premises with regards to his assumption:
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that people who need help from their MP are already at their last vestige of desperation
He couldn’t be more wrong. I have volunteered at MPS Sessions for close to three years now and most people come to us to apply for the Goodwill Repair Scheme to fix their ceiling leakage problems and to help apply for a waiver of fines. Others come to us for help to work out an installment plan to pay off their bills and for financial aid or jobs. It might not take a rocket scientist to figure this out but it certainly takes a responsible and diligent reporter to give a clear editorial.
If such people have violent tendencies, how come our ‘much maligned’ (at least from the mainstream media’s perspective) members of the opposition have not received such treatment? Opposition parties like the Singapore Democratic Party, Worker’s Party and the Singapore Democratic Alliance have been walking the ground and surely they must be exposed to such people.
The answer to this statement is evident to anyone who has a vestige of knowledge of the ground. Most MPs have at least one MPS session a week and have been doing this for many years, seeing up to a over a hundred residents each week. Do opposition parties hold weekly MPS all around Singapore every week? Not that I know of. By the sheer volume of residents seen by the various MPs over their term, it is almost certain that the MPs will encounter a difficult case or two or fail to satisfy the varying demands of the residents.
This doesn’t stop the MP or the volunteers from trying but it is both ridiculous to cite isolated incidents as an example of the MP’s inability to handle different people.
Kelvin Teo’s logic is puzzling as he somehow links these two incidents to the GRC system without subtantiating how this is linked. Is he insinutating that MP Seng and MP Phua are incompetent at managing residents and that they are deserving of these outbursts? MPs and their volunteers are there every week, serving tirelessly to help needy residents and Kelvin Teo’s article not only debases our work but also adds insult to injury.
I would suggest Kelvin Teo get off his computer and come join us on the ground and see with his own eyes what MPS Sessions are really like before making such sweeping accusations.
I also urge the Kent Ridge Common to attempt to improve the quality of their editorial and take themselves more seriously if they wish to be more than the “Most read Online Daily in Kent Ridge”.
Edgar MPS
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