By Ravi Philemon
The Online Citizen (TOC) sent in the following opinion to The Straits Times (ST) Forum on 30 March 2010. At the time of putting this up on TOC, ST had not responded if they would put this up in their papers. So, we publish our opinion in full here.
On March 29, I emailed the Commissioner of the Singapore Police Force (SPF), CP Ng Joo Hee in my capacity as the Joint-Chief Editor of The Online Citizen, enquiring about the report on Bangkok Post titled, “Candy’s special customers: the bribe-taking, sex hungry policemen”.
In the email, I enquired if the report in Bangkok Post was true and if true, had the SPF identified these rogue officers and what action(s) have been taken against them.
On March 30, I received a reply from Mr Paul Tan, the Quality Service Manager of SPF. In his email reply Mr Tan said that my enquiry was receiving due attention and that SPF will reply me in due course.
I was relieved to read in ST on 31 March, that responding to questions from The Straits Times, SPF confirmed that the officers mentioned in the article were not members of SPF and that the allegations by Bangkok Post against the officers of SPF are unsubstantiated.
It is inevitable that even a highly reputable force like the SPF will have some rogue elements in them. And SPF has rightly dealt with such rogue officers in the past in a firm manner and in accordance to the law; for the integrity of SPF could only be maintained by flushing out such officers and exposing them for the sake of openness and accountability.
But what troubles me is, why did SPF choose not to respond to the queries of TOC on this issue, but was quick to respond to ST?
No doubt ST is a mainstream media and SPF may have deemed that there is a greater urgency in disseminating appropriate information to them on this issue, but could not SPF have extended the same courtesy to TOC, in the interest of letting as many people as possible know that there was no basis to the allegations of Bangkok Post. After all, the issue concerns the incorruption of SPF and they should have made use of as many platforms as possible to put this message through.
Net-savvy citizens are often the first to read such articles in cyberspace and the writers at TOC (even though being all volunteers) often take it upon ourselves to verify the authenticity of such news thoroughly before commenting on it, for the sake of keeping our readers responsibly informed.
SPF should have also used our platform to dispel that their officers are not implicated in this issue.
Come to think of it, what is SPF’s position on engaging Net-savvy citizens, especially Net-savvy citizens who put their real names, contact details and other personal information out there, when they raise such legitimate questions?
Even if SPF had not responded to the query of TOC appropriately and in a timely manner because we are not part of the mainstream media, they could have at least responded to me in my personal capacity.
Not every Net-savvy citizen reads the mainstream media and so SPF should not assume that by quashing such allegations on the mainstream media, they have done their part in denying such allegations.
With the rapid evolution of new media and the hastened, radical shift of media consumption from traditional media to new media, SPF should build strong community partnerships in cyberspace to spread crime alerts, crime prevention advisories and counter-terrorism messages.
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Afternote
After sending this email to Straits Times Forum, SPF responded to me via email on 1 April 2010. An officer by the name of Junaina Juhari acting for SPF’s Quality Service Manager responded to my query saying, with “regards to the queries that you have raised, kindly refer to Police’s response published in the Straits Times, The New Paper and TODAY newspaper dated 31 Mar 2010”.
When I asked her if she would either confirm or deny the allegations of the article in the Bangkok Post without referring me to the mainstream media, she wrote back to apologise for assuming that I have access to the local media and quoted their response to the mainstream media:
In response to media queries on the Bangkok Post article dated 28 March 2010, “Candy’s special customers: the bribe-taking, sex hungry policemen”, Police spokesman Inspector Mohd Hamizyam said, “While the Police do not condone any acts of corruption and abuse of power, our investigations have revealed that the allegations made by Bangkok Post against our officers are unsubstantiated. Instead, one auxiliary police officer and three private security officers are currently assisting in ongoing investigations after the arrest of three men on 16 March 2010 for an offence under the Women’s Charter.”
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SPF should be independent and not partisan. However their choice of reply seems to tell otherwise. The officers should be aware that it depends on the people for total defense, if there is a slightlest hint that they put PAP before the people, the outcome is going to be disastrous. This must be a critical lesson disseminated to everyone within SAF and SPF. Singapore is not PAP.
SPF may not want to legitimise TOC by giving you a response.
Was there a tip-off by the msm to the police that they have received this letter from TOC? Is that why the police responded almost 1 day later? Is that why the msm did not publish the letter because they want the police to respond to you and prove the content of your letter is wrong?
so TOC is not part of the local media according to SPF
There is no 300 teals of silver at this spot.
singapoor polis matas hav many nanny duties liked jargaed leekuanyew and familLEE..protect wongcantsink with 4 shortpants mata on his matethepeasants session
with another 2 matas each protectin shortleggs minister/dr balekampond and limsiasuayed included…
so who in charged for the matakia to protect themselves? unless you are expectin Kelvin Choo Yew Beng to be the liasion officer..(he is very very good in liasion on bed) lark!
Please understand TOC,
that even the PAP govt is having trouble not knowing how to handle the cyber world.
How can we expect SPF to handle such an issue. Since, its all a top-down approach in Singapore. SPF has to wait for orders. No matter how grave the situation.
(the same problem again, top officials too afraid to make decisions, in new situations)
How many times have we seen this?
@TOC,
Once you have established yourself as a credible source with a large base of followers, you will be a force to reckon with. PAP & SPF will be paying more attention and due respect to you. Keep up the good work, stay on the right track and be the voice of SG citizens! Cheers!
Pretty place is right. The SPF only be effective if they have skillsets like our local liaison officer here. And even then it takes 5 years to train one. How?
I mean the bro liaison, of course. The others are just going thru the motions
I dunno… lately the Home Affairs ministry has been shirking responsibility by saying the government has nothing to do with i) the rise in housing prices, ii) the rise in COE. There is a lot of white-lying going on but i hate to extend it to the SPF. I think that if there really were such a thing going on, there would be A LOT of pressure from MBT to hush things up.
SPF must get to the bottom of this matter to clear their names and don’t follow the govt footstep of covering up negative incidents with the help the local media.
SPF must get to the bottom of this matter and not just brush aside what is released in bangkok post. It must be responsible to the people not the govt.
@TOC,
Once you have established yourself as a credible source with a large base of followers, you will be a force to reckon with. PAP & SPF will be paying more attention and due respect to you. Keep up the good work and be the voice of SG citizens! Cheers!
The SPF should be independent as this is provided by the Constitution.
As an executive arm of the government, it should act according to the Police Force Act or any other legislation which it is empowered with.
Parliament has its own legislative powers and the Police should not be subjugate to the ruling party or its members.
This is why when there is a change in government or the ruling party, the Police will continue to work independently and unbiasly on its won.
Perhaps the officers reacting to such enquiries are not offa with the ambit of their reporting heirachy