Hiding behind the rhetoric of the third-person

I would really love to hear the likes of Dr Vivian, Teo Chee Hian, Ng Eng Hen, Raymond Lim and company come up front in parliament to say "I want my salary increased to 2.2 million SGD -- otherwise I would quit and go back to my private-sector job."

Because in a nutshell, that is what the bottomline is all about. Speaking in such a first-person would strip away the moral high ground the gah-men is hiding behind with their adopting of the third-person in such an argument.

Seriously, no matter what they say about upping salaries to attract future high-calibre people to be ministers, the current slate of ministers are still the ones being paid high salaries. It is a flawed argument -- I am sure the very skilled orators amongst them like Raymond Lim and Dr. V would be able to tell you that.

I have kept so quiet about the whole ministerial salary thing because there is no point in doing so. History repeats itself in Singapore because of the effects of group-think perpetuated by a lack of checks and balances here. Under the PAP, Singapore society has become what American neo-conservative thinker Daniel Bell, calls a "public household."

But I am saying something about it now because I have been touched by some of the parliamentary speeches I have belatedly watched/listened/read.

I am glad there were voices of sanity in the whole farcical orchestration/staging of this whole parliamentary "debate" that transpired a few weeks ago. Non-Constituency MP, Workers' Party's Sylvia Lim and Nominated MP, NUS law professor Thio Li Ann delivered sterling speeches.

Lim was very pointed in her scepticism of the point of the whole debate, while Thio delivered a passionate argument about the higher ideals of public office, which had the above-mentioned minsterial names squirming in their seats.

I would really like to see a public squaring up between the debating poweress of Dr Vivian and Prof Thio, both accomplished debates on the local junior college circuit in their hey days as students in the 1980s.

These parliamentary videos can be accessed off the Channel News Asia parliamentary video archives.

While it might come as no surprise given the two females I have mentioned are law-trained and their mooting and litigation experience must have stood them in good stead, my highest praise is reserved for PAP MP, Denise Phua.

She delivered a stunning blow by blow rebuttal of the ministerial salary increase that was obviously way off the party line, and so totally not the kind of cheer leading that other first term MPs delivered.

It was way more than what TODAY newspaper called "speech of the day" -- it was so superb that I thought it was arguably "speech of Singapore's post-independence age."

While I fear for her political future, I doubt that figures on her mind at all because she was speaking from her gut and from a genuine appreciation of what people on the ground thinks and feel. What made her speech so powerful, was her ability to use the pragmatic, utilitarian and instrumental language of the PAP to state her case.

It was akin to stuffing the words and the logic of the PAP, back into their own mouths. It was so wonderful and cathartic that I stood up and gave her a standing ovation when she finished.

It was insane since it was 2am at home and a few days late when I watched her speech, but I was moved to tears and it gave me some hope that some among the ranks of the incumbent have a genuine heart and have not been blinded by the potent mix of money and power.

Like what Sylvia Lim, Thio Li Ann, Denise Phua and I am sure a few others have said, ideals still and must continue to have a place in public office. Because ideals are in a nutshell principles, and it was THOSE that drove Lee Kuan Yew to do what he did in the early 1960s.

Such higher principles have to be the case and not the motivation for money alone, because otherwise, contrary to the warped logic perpetuated by the current PM, we would be attracting the wrong people.

I am not calling for ministers to be paid peanuts, but Phua's suggestions are worth serious scrutiny because they make perfect sense and would be a good balance. Her words carry tremendous weight because she is an experienced HR practitioner, who is currently heading some dylexic association for a meagre $1/month salary.

After all, shouldn't more than an eyelid be batted in this instance when the same people hankering after such a hefty pay rise when they are paid so much already, were so stingy with even increasing public welfare handouts by a meagre $30?