With 200,000 Pinoys working in this city, their demand for more space for social and leisure activities is only natural and expected just like the increase in population from 3.3m to 5.4m and the coming 6.9m. No one can fault the Pinoys for wanting more space to live and enjoy their stay here. We can’t squeeze them into dogs kennels right? As a good host, we need to be more gracious and generous and share our space and amenities with them.
We have already done this. We are giving a lot of space to the various foreign communities living here, all 2 million of them – Race Course Rd/Little India for the Indians and Bangladeshis, Chinatown and Geylang for the PRCs, Golden Miles for the Thais, Peninsula for the Myanmese, Joo Chia for the Vietnamese, and Lucky Plaza/Botanic Gardens for the Pinoys.
We must also have foresight, to be able to project their needs into the future. The more they grow the more space they will need. And this will apply to the other nationalities. By the time our population hits 6.9m, the foreigners would definitely need more space to live comfortably. We cannot be so selfish to deprive them from having more space. The current demand for a place to celebrate the Pinoy Independence Day is only to be expected.
And why not, our Sinkie population will shrink further, so we don’t need so much space for ourselves in the future. Let’s be mentally prepared to cede more space to make our guests feel they are welcomed, and it will reflect very well on us.
The need for more space is only a small step forward. There will be more social and other living needs, like a TV channel for their native programmes, newspapers, and maybe more signages on the streets in their languages. They may need to be represented in Parliament in some ways so that their interests will be protected. We can either have NMPs or MPs specially tasked to protect them.
Oh, I think they are already being encouraged to integrate with us and joining RC activities and may even become RC members. With such a huge presence, they cannot be ignored. Their interests cannot be ignored. As their presence is proportionally increased, more resources would have to be diverted to meet their needs. And as our presence is proportionally decreased, lesser resources are needed for our citizens. There will be a new balance and a new status quo developing naturally and everyone will be happy, to each according to his needs. In politics they termed this as proportional representation. Caveat, in most countries, proportional representation formula applies only to citizens of a country. In our case, we are no longer a country or just a country in the making, and foreigners are already regarded as locals, so citizenship is no longer a criterion to demand for more space and representation.
What do you think, be you a gracious Sinkie or xenophobic Sinkie?
Chua Chin Leng aka redbean
*The writer blogs at mysingaporenews.blogspot.com.