The big news today is the Chairman of the Changi Airport Group (CAG), Mr. Liew Mun Leong has decided to retire. Mr. Liew who had accused his maid of stealing, ended up facing an angry backlash from people as it was revealed in open court that he had actually tried to frame the maid. Details of his announcement can be found at:
As mentioned in my previous posting, Mr. Liew came out of
the incident looking like a cheap elitist bully who tried to bend the power of
the state against someone who is classified as one of the lowest possible wage
earners. The anger against Mr. Liew has spilled out and rebounded onto the
organisations he was leading. The biggest target was Changi Airport, our proverbial
jewel that we show off to the world. The airports Facebook page was bombarded
with angry post as the following report describes:
Mr. Liew made the international headlines, though admittedly
not in the way that he would have wanted:
I guess you could say that with this type of PR backlash, it
was inevitable that Mr. Liew would have to bow out of every position he was
holding. I guess you could call this a face-saving solution. While this was inevitable,
its still not enough.
What’s particularly interesting about this whole incident is
that there are those who aspire to be elite circles who don’t get why the
public is upset. The Young Pork Guzzling Muslim Politician called to ask for my
views on the matter and he sounded genuinely shocked by the public anger
against Mr. Liew.
He isn’t alone. Our Minister of Law who is somehow
unconflicted by the fact that he’s also the Minister of Home Affairs, said that
something went wrong somewhere and it would be investigated but cautioned
against a “witch hunt.” Then there was Mr. Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara, Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of Temasek International (subsidiary of our second Sovereign
Wealth Fund) came out to announce to us that Mr. Liew had made great
contributions to Singapore and that we needed to hear his side of the story. It
goes without saying that this has only made people angrier and the powers that
be seem astounded.
I remember repeating the crux of the issue to the Young Pork
Guzzling Muslim Politician – here we have Mr. Liew Mun Leong earning several
million a year, going out of his way to crush an Indonesian maid earning what
most Singaporeans would call a slave wage. It is an elephant going into a
boxing ring with a gerbil.
This situation could have been easily avoided if Mr. Liew had
been a little more generous with his most obvious strength – money. What he
considers miniscule, she considers a fortune. While asking her to work in two
additional areas is technically illegal, he could have offered her an extra
hundred or two a month and she would never complained. Yet, it was $20 dollars
extra for an additional 100 hours of work, which even the people from “Shithole”
countries (just to use a Trumpism) would find exploitative. When she complained
about the illegal deployment, he could easily have offered her say a grand for
every year of service and she would have offered to work in another four areas.
Yet, he decided that she was to be destroyed. He’s now
claiming that he suspected she was stealing for many years but tolerated it. If
he really suspected she was stealing, logic has it that he could have stopped
it years ago (Mr. several million dollars a year can’t afford to install
cameras in the house?) I remember asking the Young Pork Guzzling Muslim Politician
if he’d allow someone, he suspected of theft to pack their belongings on their
own when you were sacking them – obvious answer – no.
It was clear that the intention was to set her up and what
people find unforgivable was that it became a criminal and so it was the State
against a maid instead of Liew Mun Leong against a maid. Had the police followed
proper procedures and behaved like an impartial party, it wouldn’t be so bad.
But as the judgement shows, they acted more like Mr. Liew’s force. The first judge
allowed it dodgy evidence to be used. This wasn’t the elephant against a gerbil.
It was a blue whale against a goldfish with the goldfish being tied up in his
bowl while the whale gets to do whatever he wants.
Mr. Pillay coming up to talk about how we needed to hear Mr.
Liew’s side of the story. Mr. Pillay, former Managing Partner at one of the
most prominent local law firms forgot that the events leading up to Ms. Parti
Liyana’s acquittal came out in court, the one place where raw facts are what matter
most. Mr. Pillay forgot that Mr. Liew had been writing Ms. Liyana’s script as
well as telling his story.
It’s like this, courts consider extenuating circumstances
for example – a beggar who hasn’t eaten for 10 days deciding to steal an apple
from the grocery store. A case of its technically wrong but his situation was
such that he was compelled to do it. What were the extenuating circumstances
for the whale to stich up the goldfish?
Singaporeans accept many things. We accept that life isn’t
always fair. Yes, the rich and powerful have advantages and yes, the system is
often stacked in practice. However, we do expect some equality before the law
and we do expect the facts to speak regardless of who says them. This was a clear-cut
case of the powerful not just using the full might of their power but also using
illegal means to crush the insignificant. Then, when the rich and powerful get
caught, the other rich and powerful rush to his defense, as if they’re trying
to drill it into our heads that is somehow benefits us to allow the rich and
powerful to do illegal things. Wealth and power should not make what is illegal
– legal just because it is done by the rich and powerful.
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