I don’t speak up against the PAP because it’s fun.
I speak up because I believe in fairness, in equality, and in respecting the people around us. Because I believe in what our pledge says.
Yes, the PAP (of the past) has done good things – they helped secure clean water for Singapore, they cleaned up the rivers and they made Singapore safe.
But the PAP today is different. We have the least number of doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, policemen and even teachers.
Today, we do not have enough hospital beds. The PAP claims to build tents in hospitals as planned infrastructure. Today, class sizes in schools in Singapore are the largest among the developed countries and too big, and today, the PAP tells us not to pursue degrees and import foreign talent into Singapore, while neglecting our own people.
Meanwhile, the poor and elderly continue to live poorer and poorer lives. More than a quarter of Singaporeans live in poverty. 30% of Singaporeans live in perpetual debt. Middle-income Singaporeans only earn enough to buy what we need and nothing else. Older Singaporeans have to work as cleaners and security guards because nearly 90% of Singaporeans cannot withdraw their CPF because they cannot meet their CPF Minimum Sum.
Yes, we have to give gratitude where it is deserved. And that is why I honour Goh Keng Swee, S. Rajaratnam, Toh Chin Chye and Ong Teng Cheong, and that is why I show my sincere respect to the PAP old guards who had helped my parents’ and grandparents’ generation build Singapore into a place that they could be proud of.
But I worry for Singapore under the current PAP. The lack of direction and strategic vision of the current PAP and their selfish greed to accumulate more wealth for themselves while allowing the rest of us Singaporeans to suffer is unforgivable and disgusting.
Today, we have a Singapore which has become self-centred and distrusting because of a PAP which has created policies to sow divide among the people.
No, this is not a Singapore that I believe in and this is not a Singapore that I want. The PAP is destroying our country, our history and our lives.
There was once a time where Singaporeans were united, where we were together and where out people were friendly and stood in solidarity. My parents and their parents saw that in their lives. Increasingly, this is lost in Singapore. Our young are growing up in a country where we believe that fighting only for ourselves and among ourselves is the natural way to be.
But it didn’t used to be like that.
We cannot let the PAP ruin our country anymore. We cannot let the PAP run our country into the ground. Singapore has only been around for 50 years. But at the rate things are going under the current PAP, we won’t last another 50.
My friends, it is humanity and human dignity to look out for one another and to take care of one another. It’s human decency to hold the hand of the other next to us. Today, we’ve forgotten how to do that in Singapore. Today, we have forgotten what it means to be kind and to care for someone else.
Today, our children grow up in lost histories and lost childhoods and so will their children.
No, I do not want a Singapore that is corrupted by the PAP’s selfish policies and which will lead to our demise. No, I do not want a people that have become uncaring because the PAP wants it to be that way.
No, the PAP has to go. It has extended its stay long enough and it is no longer healthy for our nation to life under the scrouge of the PAP. For our country to come alive again and for our people to be able to love, to be united and to come in solidarity once again, for the future of our nation and our people, the PAP has to go.
I do not write to speak up against the PAP because it is fun.
I speak up against the PAP because for the sake of humanity, human dignity and for the love and respect for each and every one of us, we have to invite the PAP to vacate government and allow Singaporeans to live the lives that would only respect ourselves.
The PAP has to go.
Roy Ngerng
*The author blogs at www.TheHeartTruths.com