Opinions

IMDA is reviewing reimbursement claims after stopping Watain from playing in Singapore. Ravage Records mentioned that it costed them between $15,000 to $20,000 to bring the band to Singapore. This is inclusive of things like venue rental, flights and accommodation, transportation, equipments and band fees.

Ravage Records also aim to provide refunds for those who bought tickets to the event.

In the grand scheme of things, $20,000 might not be that much to the Government of Singapore. With the millions in Singapore, Singaporeans need not donate even a single $1 to pay of this $20,000. They will probably take a part of our taxpayer's money and pay it off in the end. But then again, why should we even provide a single cent to pay it back? I say we should fine the higher ups that made the decision to cancel the event!

Apart from a minority who partook in a petition to cancel the event, none of us even know of/care about Watain playing. Shouldn't then those higher ups who made the decision be the ones responsible for paying for it? The dumbest thing is most of us didn't know of the existence of Watain. And now? I would say 90% of the Singaporeans know about them.

We should not have to pay for such stupid decisions made by the people governing this country. Let them pay for it out of their own pockets. They have to be accountable for such things and not the citizens.

Source: Facebook

The wife of PM Lee, Ho Ching is widely known to be the CEO of Temasek Holdings. The holding company that is owned by the Singapore Government. Many citizens have suspected and blamed Ho Ching for losing their CPF money from bad investments. 

Ho Ching is now going to step down as chairman of Temasek International, a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings. However, she is still going to remain as the CEO of Temasek Holdings. She claims that this move is to ensure that Temasek International is "ready for disruptive challenges and opportunities ahead". Current deputy chairman and CEO Lee Theng Kiat will take over as CEO of Temasek International.

Do you think anything will change with this move? Think about it, Ho Ching is still the CEO of Temasek Holdings. Stepping down from a subsidiary doesn't mean much if she is still the CEO of Temasek Holdings. She can still continue to control and make decisions. Furthermore, do you think any of her and PM Lee's cronies are willing to go against her? All of them are just their puppets, waiting for their strings to be pulled. Just like certain presidents we know of.

As many of you know, we have been ranked the most expensive country to live in for the past 5 years. Well it's time to make it the 6th year running. A worldwide cost of living survey done by Economist Intelligence Unit 2019 show that Singapore is still the most expensive city in 2019.

Two other countries, Paris and Hong Kong has also moved up in placings to tie with Singapore.

So much for our PM telling us that they will be focusing on cost of living issues and how the Government will do its part to alleviate cost of living concerns. When we will ever see a drop in cost of living? Youngsters nowadays are worrying over how they can buy their first home, if they can get married early. Such concerns also affect the dropping birth rate of Singapore (which is also another issue our Government wants to fix -roll eyes-) as they worry that they might not be financially stable to bring up their own children when they do not even have enough for themselves.

It's only when our Government really wakes up and do something about the cost of living, and not just talk about it, can we really fix the issues haunting our tiny island. It's time to wake up.

A National Environment Agency (NEA) officer was speaking at a presentation during the 2019 Sustainable Innovation Expo in Nairobi, Kenya. During his presentation, he mentioned that Singaporeans might be asked to "pay as you throw" in the future as an effort to limit rubbish dumped by households.

This might involve radio frequency identification (RFID) in rubbish chutes to monitor and limit the amount of trash we are allowed to throw. He mentioned that with this new scheme, some might end up paying less.

Now think about it. What would you do if you can't clear your trash? Will more people become hoarders? Or will people just litter their void decks/streets and corridors? Is that what our Government is pushing us to do? 

Also, why are they always coming up with new ideas that involve us paying them? Why are they not thinking in the form of rebates - if we manage our waste properly, maybe we can get some rebates for our bills and such. Is this yet another way to get more funding for some more useless items so that they can wayang?

Their ideas continue to astound me. I "can't wait" to see what other genius ideas and excuses they come up with to take away our hard earned money and make our country a living hell. I swear soon they will put ERPs on our lifts to fund their stupid electronic boards.

Editors note: Do you think this idea of paying as you throw is good? Let us know!

Most of us have probably never heard of the band Watain before today. However, after the events of yesterday, probably ALL of us know about them and how they were banned on the day they were supposed to hold a concert here in Singapore. However, do we know the real reasons behind the ban? Many netizens went online to rant about the incident.

One Reddit user blamed it on the petition which snowballed into the ban:

"The petition per se did not influence the decision ... It was an assessment made by the ministry, with security as well as public order assessment": K Shanmugam Sc on why MHA advised that the WATAIN concert be cancelled.

Mate, if it didn't influence the decision, why so GODDAMN LAST MINUTE? People come here liao, then you say not welcomed. Sure, then you should FOOT THE BILL 100%. Because you should had done it wayyyyyy before IMDA approved them to perform intially, and they even had heavy restrictions on what can be played. As if I'm going to believe 100%, it may not had influenced totally, but I'm sure it caused a loud enough ruckus that they decided to look into it.

Its no different from when residents complain about something, nothing gets done, they go to their MP or complain in the newspapers, suddenly the MPs say they will look into the issue.

Hell, it should show how terrible inter agency coordination really is, why didn't they seek information regarding this earlier if its a 'security' risk?

Another questioned if it was because of religious people holding political roles, which might have affected the decisions:

Just a thought I had in regards to the Watain incident. I'd be very interested to see who actually made up the MDA reviewing committee. Should there be such a thing as "Religious Corruption" to look into?

We don't have the US kinda lobbying, but does Religious Lobbying exist here?

Should a secular state have policy makers that are religiously biased?

Do share your thoughts! Personally, I'm non religious. Satanism and Christianity are different sides of the same coin to me. Does the fact that one is clearly favoured more than the other (AFAIK satanism is not recognised as a religion in Singapore) mean that Singapore is religiously biased?

We await the day that our government will be transparent with us and let us know the real reasons behind their decisions and stop lying to our citizens. But will that day ever come? Whatever it is, we are sorry that this has happened to the concert.

Education Minister Ong Ye Kung announced that there will be no more Normal Technical (NT), Academic (NA) or Express streams by 2024. There is also a plan for N- & O-Level examinations to be combined into one common major national examination.

With this, subject based banding (SBB) will be introduced as well. This is to reduce stigmatisation such as NT students only can reach a certain level whereas an Express student can reach a much higher level. 

SBB maps in this way:

• Normal (Technical) level -> General (1) or G1
• Normal (Academic) -> General (2) or G2
• Express -> General (3) or G3

So a student who is good in Math but bad in Geography can take a G3 Math and a G1 Geography.

After reading this, I can't help but feel like this is still a form of streaming, Instead of doing it on a whole, it has just been cut down to streaming by subjects. Getting rid of the "streaming" is nothing more than an illusion created by the Government. Getting rid of stigamatisation? Kids taking G3 subjects can still look down on kids taking on G1 subjects. Just because you changed the names does not mean anything.

Getting rid of N- & O-Level examinations also does not take away stigmatisation. Students are still going to get streamed into the ITE, Poly or JC routes. Think about the times the ITE kids were told that It's The End. Or students from RP being called ITE Woodlands. 

Getting rid of stigmatisation is not that easy. Just by changing our Secondary school education will not help with this. Not only are the people from lower streams stimatised. Those white horses are too. There are also students with good family backgrounds "paying" their way through their education. A genius who is not given the same chances and opportunities as mediocre white horses still have a high chance of falling behind them. 

There is more to stimatisation than just our secondary school grades. But obviously, people from the ivory towers will see otherwise, messing our lives like we're pawns on a chessboard. Well.. At least some of us don't have to study for five years in our Secondary schools anymore.