by: Ravi Philemon/
TOC received two emails from the office of Dr Tony Tan today. The first email said that his office read TOC’s article on Dr Tan’s son “with a little disappointment”.
The first email went on to say that TOC was invited to Dr Tony Tan’s press conference “in the spirit of fostering debate” and that they will continue to do so. That his office requested TOC to contact them for a quote or clarification if we are running a story, and promised that they will do their best to get back to us as quickly as they can.
TOC responded to Dr Tony Tan’s office’s first email and said that if they read the article, they would realise that the article was not about Dr Tan’s son, but about the mainstream media being selective in how they disseminate news about the Presidential aspirants.
TOC has no intention of talking about anyone in Dr Tan’s family. They are not standing for any public office. TOC’s coverage is, as always, driven by what has been making the news.
We replied that if we do not cover the issues that are making news, then TOC will lose all credibility. That the question asked in the article are ‘out there’ and are not TOC’s.
In the second email Dr Tan’s office said that the “net has been aflame with allegations that Dr Patrick Tan, Dr Tony Tan’s son, did not complete his National Service. These false rumours have been repeatedly posted on Dr Tony Tan’s Facebook page and elsewhere”, and released the responses of Dr Tony Tan and his son, Dr Patrick Tan to these allegations.
In his statement, Dr Tony Tan said:
Dr Patrick Tan’s statement is HERE.
Dr Tony Tan’s engagement of TOC is much appreciated by us. We assure his office that we will be fair in our coverage of all the Presidential hopefuls.
which minister son got fever and was helivac to hospital while other got high fever got a normal treatment? most of the MS personnel known about it
Many Singaporeans would like to know the truth on what Leong Sze Hian had been asking for the past 2 years.
What is the official unemployment rate among native Singaporeans? Not residents, PRs or new citizens?
This should upset the upcoming president more than the rumors. This is a bigger rumor. ‘Cos we don’t know the numbers and the people of Singapore has been asking this question many times to clarify.
Next, the people of Singapore wants to know what is the cost of building one HDB flat? Could you please clarify?
Otherwise, these rumors will be truths.
TRE reported on 3 Aug that Scroobal, Sammyboy forum’s resident PAP insider, has been leading an interesting discussion thread on Dr Patrick Tan and points out some interesting anomalies.
One of the most interesting anomaly is that Dr Patrick Tan is NOT a licensed doctor in Singapore. Information about this surfaced when people looking through his CV noticed that he did not serve the mandatory 1 year residency/housemanship needed to become a doctor.
A check with the SMC registry of doctors licensed to practice medicine in Singapore revealed that there is no Dr Patrick Tan Boon Ooi listed.
Further research revealed that up till 2003, the medical qualifications from Stanford were not recognized in Singapore.
Question:
Is it normal to assign a 3rd Sergeant who is not licensed as a doctor and who has unrecognized medical qualifications to lead a sensitive medical military research project, after evading NS for 13 years?
Scroobal’s update today on the TT fiasco:
“The Govt has decided not to pursue this as they did the Mervyn Tan affair. It also appears that application to disrupt was not made to pursue medicine and therefore this was not the medical pathway where the chap has to come back and do MOCC. However as a non bonded President scholar this is not allowed. There is also no question that he took up scholarship and then gave it up plus the portion of the bond. The practice is to immediately cancel the disruption as happened in the past to others. There have been cases where bonded scholars gave up the scholarship and had to stop their tertiary education in Oxbridge and return to complete their NS.
Another story has now emerged. The posting was made tailor-made as PT was keen to pursue in the direction of the course and the appropriate lab and equipment was not in any MINDEFSO facilities. The name under DMERI was purely to reflect his NS liability status. This reminds me of the case where the Head of Civil Service whose son did not fare well in his A level, re- did it again, got OMS and now in Admin Service.
There is also some rumblings over the biowarfare comments.
Looks like TT will be President after all, the son who did 7 months of actual NS will be having regular meals at the Istana while the rest who did their full NS will have to hold their dick tight and live with it.”
When Dr Tony Tan was chief of armed forces, he announced that SFI will do the cooking at army cookhouse. I ate food cooked by the NS cooks for a few months, I think the quality of SFI food is slightly better than those NS cooks. So ah…Dr Tan is welfare ah … I think. Dr Tan was MP for Sembawang back in the days. However, in my opinion, I can’t understand why he wants to be president, and it was a mystery to me why he wasn’t prime minister.
Tony Tan knows that the answers sought by the public is not simply his response sofar on the matter of his son’s NS, being, “I did not interfere in my son’s posting”. Questions such as whether there were others who served NS in the same capacity as his son, and the question concerning his son’s reservist obligation? Tony is largely being seen as “the hand of facility” and if he does not come out cleanly to address public umbrage over this matter, he will be seen as being guilty of complicity in the matter. He is then not fit to contest in the PE. Thus, in due process of the law, the book must be thrown at him. If, MPs (past & present) do not respect the law, who would? Tony must not be given to be above the law and the PEC must have the intrepidity to act accordingly otherwise the sanctity of our Constitution would have been violated and Singapore be doomed!! And, whether PM LHL has truly broken the ‘apron-string’ will be reflected by the process of the PE…
ooh “disappointed?” then better don’t become president, might become more “disappointed” in the future.
Actually Tony Tan does not need to abuse his power – he doesn’t need to open his mouth. Maybe all the Col and Lt Col will automatically know what to do? When they retire at 45, they will need a nice cushy job with high pay at a GLC. So u scratch my back i scratch your back.
dr tony tan-
jus tell us why your son was deferred??
if yes- how long??
did patrick tan do reservist??
some people were not allowed to disrupt their nsf to study medicine . after they completed ns and finished medical studies they were forced to go through mocc and serve as MO.
so is patrick tan qualilfied as a medical dr or not? if he is why did he not go thru mocc during his reservist and remain as a third sarge? if he did not become a medical dr why was he allowed to defer at all??
Don’t talk anymore Liao bro, ubs share invested by temasick n gic golo is in deep water Liao.
PE not important Liao. Our sinkingpore money is more important at this moment Liao.
I was initially upset with long disruption of Dr. Patrick Tan but after mulling through it, I think perhaps there may be issues surrounding his disruption and research that cannot be openly discussed because of various security or national/ regional sensitivities. Meliodosis is a bio-terrorism agent and was used in the two world wars and most recently in Afghanistan. I read up more about it in the following article:http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/published_volumes/biological_warfare/BW-ch07.pdf (reference to singapore and the use of meliodosis for bio-terrorism on pg 149-150)
In fact, if you google meliodosis AND bioterrorism AND singapore, you will find lots of interesting articles to read. Hope this is relevant to the discussion.
Haha, Dr tan is winning! Was at the polling station early morning…..very long Q. Outside the premises many were chatting and laughing. Well the hot topic about ns..,,.if Tony win, all male citizen serving ns will not have to do reservist for next 12 years…..kind of funny .
I chat with those auntie , Malay and Chinese. Indians and guess what they ask me to vote? Tan Cheng book! Great…… The underground bookie already know tan cb will win by 35% to 45% if proven right, my goosh they know the ground better than pappy.
Anyway, I still go for tan cb despite the rumor that we got 12 year free deferment . He is a great guy. A true kind humble honorable man. Good luck tony. I will vote for u in next ge . U r cut to be our defence , finance , prime minister calibre. Our pm is going to look for a new job soon. .