SINGAPORE: It is his favourite place in Singapore, where he feels comfortable walking, surrounded by trees. He hears the birds and insects, and when a monkey comes along, he reaches out tentative fingers, all but wanting to find and touch it.

Hiking through Bukit Timah Nature Reserve with colleagues, Mr Giang Nguyen tells them that his previous visit was with a Vietnamese lady. But it was not a date, he says.

One of them suggests he go for more hikes. “I prefer more dates,” he quips, followed by a chuckle. In the company of the 23-year-old, one is never far from a witticism or two.

On another occasion, he admits that he wishes he could see, then adds: “I need to see some beautiful women, right.”

Mr Nguyen, or Giang (pronounced ‘yang’)  to his friends, was born totally blind – he cannot see any shapes, colours or even light. He says he is “very practical” and “doesn’t really care” about his disability.

“I know wishing isn’t a very good thing to do,” he says. “I just try to do everything better. Every day, I try to do things better.”

That was the attitude that got him past a tough online coding test and several rounds of interviews with ride-hailing company Grab, to become its first blind employee in all its offices in the region.

And he may well be the first blind coder in all the start-ups in Singapore, according to Mr Ken Chua, co-founder and director of these(abilities), a design technology company that aims to “disable disabilities”.

“If there was another blind coder in the start-up ecosystem, we’d know,” said Mr Chua.

“I DON’T WANT TO BE EXTRA-SPECIAL”

As a Grab coder and software engineer, Mr Nguyen does programming for its Android app. He has also been making the app more accessible for all passengers, like the blind.

To him, it is nothing special, and the word “inspiration” rests uneasily on his shoulders. “I just want to have a normal life – do what I like, have friends and everything. I don’t want to be extra special,” he insists.

Hailing from a family of four in Ho Chi Minh City, he was about eight years old when he was selected to attend a mainstream school there, after spending three years at a school for the blind.

The adjustment was “easy”, he says, with the use of Braille textbooks, equipment to write in Braille and screen readers.

Far from doing well academically, however, his studies were “super bad” by the time he graduated to high school. He was more interested in reading books and playing.

Only when he realised he was playing into stereotypes of the blind in Vietnam – that they “cannot do much” other than become a masseuse or roadside vendor – did he come to a turning point in his life.

With encouragement from a blind friend, Nam, they decided to turn things round and “make a difference”.

A UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP – AND A SHOT AT WORKING OVERSEAS

Their first goal was to get into university, and they did – the only two blind undergraduates when they were at Ho Chi Minh City International University, says Mr Nguyen.

It was also important to him that he was doing computer science, a course hardly regarded as a norm for blind students in Vietnam, he relates, but which he qualified for thanks to his abiding interest in mathematics.

The university gave him a scholarship, and his parents helped too. Both are retired, now that he and his sister are working. Until last year, his mother was a manager at a chain of supermarkets.

University was where he learned coding, the skill that brought him to Singapore this year.

“I was told it was a better country,” he says of the Republic. “I just knew that it was kind of at the centre of Asia. A lot of people from a lot of countries came here to work. It was a good opportunity, so I came.”

It was Nam who alerted his friend to the opportunity at Grab, which was organising a hiring event in Vietnam. Mr Nguyen, in his final year at university, had already wanted to work overseas.

Both of them were Grab users. Both applied and made it to interview stage – where they caught off-guard the interviewers who didn’t know they were blind..

I was worried that they’d ask me, ‘Hey, how can you code? I’m not really sure that you can’,

recalls Mr Nguyen, who by then had a three-month internship at Intel under his belt and was working part-time for Captcha.

“But the good news is that they didn’t … They only focused on technical stuff and testing my knowledge.”

Confident, charismatic, friendly and his jokes – that is what Grab talent sourcing manager Jessica McNaughton, 25, remembers about him during his interviews. He made an impression, but his blindness did come up for deliberation.

“Can we take him on? Are we going to able to cope with this as a company? So there was a bit of a decision that had to be made,” said Ms McNaughton.

The leader at the time was speaking with the team and said, ‘Do you think this is a good idea?’ Everybody was just super inspired, and they said ‘yeah’.

Out of the 400 applicants who took the initial test, Mr Nguyen was one of eight who were ultimately hired.

MAKING ADAPTATIONS

Since he started work at Grab in February, the company has had to make some adjustments. Braille stickers were pasted on the lift buttons in the Cecil Court building where its research and development centre is located.

The same was done for the coffee machine in the pantry and for his desk, which had his name in Braille.

Mr Nguyen, too, has been adjusting to Singapore. Crossing the road, for instance, is a different proposition compared with how he does it back home. “In Vietnam, I just cross because if you wait, you have to wait all day,” he says. 

He’d also rather also walk on the road than on Vietnam’s crowded pavements with their many vendors, bicycles, people and garbage piles, he says. “It’s easier. I only have to face cars or motorbikes.” 

Yes it’s somewhat dangerous, and motorists have bumped into him “just a little bit”. “But it’s fine,” he notes wryly. “I’m still here.” Spoken like the risk-taking go-getter at heart that he is.

Not only does he find Singapore safer, but the people are also nicer. Bus drivers, for example, tell him that he has reached his stop. Back home, the drivers shout at him because he has to ask more than once.

“DON’T GIVE ME $1 OR $2”

One thing he dislikes in both countries – though it occurs less frequently in Singapore – is people trying to give him money, even when he is just walking along, because they see him as a charity case.

“I want to be treated equally because I’m still working, right?” he says exasperatedly. “If you want to give me money, right, give me thousands; don’t give me $1 or $2.”

Even some of his friends cannot help but offer to pay for his meals. “They can ask me, ‘hey, do you have money’ when I go to the food court,” he says.

“They think that I can go to the food court with no money. I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

No disservice is done, however, when people want to help by offering directions, according to Mr Nguyen.

MAKING THE WORLD MORE BLIND-FRIENDLY

Being an advocate for the blind is a journey he began in Vietnam. For instance, the banks were not allowing blind people to open accounts “because they think that we can’t manage to use ATMs”.

The irony, of course, is that cashless payments are a better option for the blind to avoid the occasional mistake of paying more than they should when they mix up the notes, he says.

So he raised the issue and sought help. But he could only convince the branch of one bank to change its practices.

In Singapore, he suggests that the MRT system map be made tactile for blind commuters – the same feedback he has for improving the trail map at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve.

He is most positive about his work at Grab, one part of which involves making its app more descriptive for blind people and thus more compatible with their screen readers.

For instance, he identified the login and registration as areas that needed change. 

“I like the feeling that I can create something that can work,” he says, explaining the satisfaction coding gives him.

His supervisor vouches for the improvements Mr Nguyen has made. “He wanted the app to be friendly, and he actually delivered,” said Grab engineering manager Javier Gomez, 35. “It was a bit surprising to me how motivated he is.”

THE ADVENTURER IN HIM

That sense of surprise has become a common reaction ever since Mr Nguyen arrived here, insisting that he would find his own accommodation. He now rents a room in an apartment.

“I want to go to new places, eat some new food. Anything new is good,” he says, adding that laksa has become one of his favourite local foods.

Sometimes I go to the beach or find some nice food stall. Sometimes I go to some bar and grab some drinks. I want to learn about alcohol. I even want to learn to distinguish between different types of whiskey.

Already, he has visited Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Pattaya, making Thailand the second country he has been to since leaving home. His one regret from his holidays there: He was not allowed to go diving.

He does not see himself as fearless, but he hopes that people will stop worrying for him. “I need freedom, and if they do something to stop me, I’ll react,’ he says.

Mr Chua from these(abilities) would like more blind people to be as “adventurous and outgoing” as Mr Nguyen.

“If you ask them to meet you somewhere for dinner or whatever, they’re very hesitant because it takes them a lot of effort and planning to understand the route,” said Mr Chua.

While Giang is like, ‘Sure, you know a new coffee spot you think I’d like? I’ll find my way there.

Mr Nguyen himself thinks that not only the blind but other people with disabilities “have the right to be independent”. “Of course they need help because they have some problem – their disability – but they also need freedom,” he says.

His reply, when asked what kind of girls he would like to date, is telling. “I’d say independent girls … That’s most important,” he says. He also likes girls who constantly try to improve themselves.

Just, you could say, like himself.

SINGAPORE: Just last month, Singapore’s pro bono movement received a boost with more law students getting involved in Community Legal Clinics, by providing paralegal services to Singaporeans and Permanent Residents in need. 

It was a further boost to an ecosystem that barely existed just 30 years ago. But all that would change thanks to a group of passionate lawyers.

When veteran lawyer Harry Elias was appointed president of the Law Society in 1984, he had big plans, like establishing a magazine and pushing for a permanent Court of Appeal.

Instead, a group of lawyers urged him to pay a visit to the courtroom where a conveyor belt of accused people was charged with various alleged crimes.

“So I sat there, I saw ladies being punished – two weeks’ imprisonment, S$2,000 fine. But nobody was speaking for them,” he said.

It was this experience that prompted Mr Elias and some of his peers, which included activist Teo Soh Lung, to initiate the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme, or CLAS, in September 1985. The scheme would provide legal aid and representation to those facing criminal charges, but could not afford a lawyer.

“(Before CLAS,) pro bono never existed as such,” said Mr Elias, who was also CLAS’ founding chairman.

According to reports, CLAS was the first initiative to provide official legal aid for non-capital punishment cases. The Government’s Legal Aid Bureau provided representation only for civil cases, while those facing capital punishment were assigned lawyers by the state, if the accused was not represented.

But the group needed seed money, a task that proved to be challenging.

“I approached the ministry. I said, ‘Look, can we do this?’. They said we are already funding the prosecution. How do we fund the opposition? It doesn’t make sense,” Mr Elias recalled.

“What you have to do is to try to collect the funds yourself. And that is really how it was.”

Mr Elias approached business magnate, Ong Beng Seng, for a donation. Within a year, CLAS had S$30,000 to work with.

While the Government could not contribute funds, premises were provided. The final step was pulling in more lawyers to provide their services for free.

“The one thing we were expecting was a lack of volunteers, but my first letter (reaching out to them) got 200 lawyers. I almost fell. I said, ’What is happening? For God’s sake, 200 lawyers?’” Mr Elias recalled with a laugh.

From the get-go, volunteer lawyers were told they would not receive a cent for their work. 

 “I told them, you’re not entitled to disbursements. Disbursements for taxis, for police reports, please waive that. I don’t have the money to give you. All 200 said fine.”

THE FIRST CASE: SHOPLIFTING A TIN OF MILK POWDER

When it first started, Mr Elias said the team decided they would only take theft cases. More than 30 years later, the first case that CLAS represented is still etched firmly in his mind.

It involved a 38-year-old mother of two. She was alleged to have stolen a tin of milk, baby food and an egg roll from a supermarket in 1986.

“This woman came from a background that is poor,” Mr Elias said.

“She needed to buy milk. She’s not going to take and sell the milk in Tekka Market. She’s taking it home, and she’s making milk for the baby.”

When she appeared in court, Mr Elias also realised how lost she seemed.

“She was a small woman (appearing) against the majesty of the court,” Mr Elias said.

“A courtroom with people dressed up in robes, and police officers all over the place. You go there, it intimidates you. It intimidates me and I’m supposed to be a 40-, 50-year-old man. The woman doesn’t know where she’s going. And I wanted was for her to be represented.”

A volunteer lawyer who represented the woman successfully applied to the Attorney-General’s Office for the charges to be dropped.

Barely eight months into the scheme, CLAS was extended to locals and foreigners who qualified based on a means test. And they could now be represented for all criminal cases, except capital offences.

From a small grassroots-led initiative, Mr Elias said CLAS became “the golden crown of lawyers”. But it would take another 20 years before a comprehensive pro-bono movement would truly take root.

A REVIEW OF LEGAL AID AND THE FORMALISATION OF PRO BONO

In 2006, the Law Society’s Legal Aid Review Committee was tasked to assess the provision of legal aid in Singapore.

“The report looked at what was currently available and also examined the profile of needy persons and basically looking to see if lawyers could step up in a more structured way to help these persons through pro bono,” said Chief Executive Officer of the Law Society Pro Bono Services, Lim Tanguy.

Mr Lim said the report made two key recommendations. He said the first was that lawyers should aim for an aspirational target of 25 hours of pro bono work per year, and the second was to set up an office to administer the “bank of hours” when directed to areas of need.

The recommendations led to the establishment of the Pro Bono Services Office (PBSO) under the Law Society in 2007, with Mr Lim appointed as the Director.

For Mr Lim, who had been doing pro bono work for foreign workers at the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME) for a number of years, the new post was a natural progression.

“I was happy where I was. I had two wonderful partners but maybe it was an early mid-life crisis and I basically decided to apply for the job,” he said.

“My role was to set up the office and then look for pro bono opportunities and initiate new schemes.”

While CLAS remained a focus of the office, the team was able to provide more structured support to volunteer lawyers, and expand into new areas of pro bono work. 

It worked with the North West and South East Community Development Councils (CDC) to run legal clinics in 2007, providing residents living in the heartlands with free legal advice.In 2014, the initiative was expanded into a network for all 5 CDCs to tap on, and last month, the collaboration was renewed for another three years.

The office also continued its work with voluntary welfare organisations like HOME and the Migrant Workers’ Centre (MWC).

With the establishment of the office, more law firms have also come on board, said Mr Lim. In 2007, the community legal clinics were running four nights a week, and the office needed to expand the pool of lawyers who could assist.

“The reality is such that even if a lawyer wants to do pro bono work, unless he or she is with a firm that is pro- pro bono, it would be very difficult for them to do so and by getting the managing partners to commit their firm, it becomes about their firm branding, their firm’s reputation and you have firm alignment from top to bottom as well,” Mr Lim said.

It is not surprising then that given Mr Elias’ involvement in pro bono work, his firm, now known as Eversheds Harry Elias Partnership, was the first to sign a memorandum of understanding with PBSO in 2014.

The firm’s managing partner Philip Fong said the MOU meant undertaking 25 CLAS cases a year.

“We assign files to the junior lawyers who are supervised by their seniors,” Mr Fong said.

“We clock in the time they spend on such files and this is also taken into consideration in assessing performance and contribution to the firm.”

With the way the office had expanded, Mr Lim said the PBSO was corporatised in April this year, with the office transferring its operations, programmes and 30 staff to a new entity, the Law Society Pro Bono Services (LSPBS).

A BIGGER CLAS AND A MORE FORWARD-LOOKING PRO BONO SYSTEM

Some 30 years after it was established, CLAS reached another milestone. In 2015, the government announced that it would provide up to $3.5 million in funding to cover operational costs and disbursements to volunteer lawyers.

This meant that the number of accused people it could assist would increase from 400, to about 6,000 people each year.

Mr Lim said LSPBS is also looking out for new areas for expansion, by touching base with the various VWOs. One area it sees potential for more volunteers is in eldercare law. This means helping Singapore’s increasingly ageing population put in place the “right legal instruments” at an earlier stage.

The second, he said, is equipping social workers with adequate legal training when helping vulnerable families and individuals.

“The thing about law is it’s a bit like medical issues,” Mr Lim said. “If you look upstream and take precautions or treatment then, it’s much easier to deal with than downstream.

“With problem gamblers for example, there’s a fear in the family that if they don’t pay up the debt, even to licensed money lenders, something bad will happen or if they are married, the spouse is liable. So (equipping social workers with) simple advice is in informing families by telling them that that’s not how it works.

“You have so many cases where all the children’s and spouse’s savings are gone just because the husband is an addicted gambler. And had they just let them be made bankrupt, it would have stopped and he would not have been allowed to go into casinos and so on.”

Mr Lim said LSPBS started a pilot at the Taman Jurong Family Service Centre in December last year, giving talks to social workers on laws that may be helpful in their line of work.

The way the movement has expanded has highlighted how important it is for people to have access to legal information, and be represented, regardless of their income, say pro bono advocates like Mr Elias and Mr Lim.

Mr Elias, who celebrated his 80th birthday in May, is still active in pro bono work. And no matter how heinous the crime, his feelings about ensuring everyone gets their day in court has not changed. He is currently representing a man who is accused of raping his mother.

“It’s not for us to try them. The whole system is that there is a judge,” Mr Elias said.

“If he thinks you have done wrong, listen (to my defence) and punish (accordingly).”

“So why don’t we take (the case), give them the opportunity for the best possible representation. Sometimes you take it on the basis of acquittal. I don’t get an acquittal, I don’t care, but if I get the judge listening to the mitigating factors, then I have done my job.”

SINGAPORE: The first try fails, and so does the second. She comes agonisingly close on the third, only to fall back in her wheelchair. Perhaps weakened by the exertion, her fourth comes up short too. But she quickly bounces back for attempt No.5: And stands, teetering, leaning on her mother briefly before successfully swiveling around and sitting down on her bed.

This was young Trinity’s first time transferring herself from wheelchair to bed – a milestone captured on video in 2013, and symbolic of her wider battle against the blood cancer known as acute lymphoid leukemia.

Mere months before, as a nine-year-old, she underwent three brain surgeries in the space of 10 days to fix complications arising from chemotherapy. The ordeal left her unable to talk or move; she was also robbed of other senses and suffered memory loss.

Fast forward to the present and she is a healthy 13-year-old armed with a radiant smile, ready laugh and positive glow about her. With her PSLE completed, Trinity already has an eye on secondary school and beyond, to dreams of a career as a singer-songwriter – who beatboxes to boot.

The question of how she got here elicits a lengthy pause. “Before, I felt like it was useless and pointless, that there was nothing I could do, that there wasn’t a way,” she muses. “I eventually accepted my condition, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do something about it.”

“I just didn’t want to give up so easily.”

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, SHE’D START CRYING OR SHOUTING

It all began with frequent fevers in early 2013, said Trinity’s father Govinda Rajan, 48.

An initial blood test came back normal, but during the June school holidays Trinity grew noticeably weaker, prompting her parents to take action.

After a second blood test at the hospital, they were informed by doctors that 90 per cent of their daughter’s body was occupied by leukemia cells.

“Her lymph nodes and her heart were swelling, making her chest area bigger – I thought she was maturing early,” said Trinity’s mother Esther Melanie Dass, 44. “She also had a 10cm cyst above her pancreas.”

“The doctor said it was a slightly higher-risk cancer, still curable, but they would have to start chemotherapy immediately.”

The following month of treatment was a difficult time surmounted only by Trinity’s high tolerance for pain, said both her parents.

“When the doctor first poked a lot of needles in my skin I cried very loudly. It was very painful,” their daughter recounted. “But as time passed, I got used to it. I could still feel the needles but I would just try to not think about the pain.”

She also remembers doctors “inserting a long needle” in her spine, as part of a tri-monthly lumbar puncture procedure to collect fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Then there was the discomfort of a portacath device implanted near her heart, to administer the chemotherapy.

Her eldest sister Tritassha, 17, sometimes stayed overnight to accompany Trinity. “It was really scary because in the middle of the night, she’d start crying or shouting. Sometimes it was nightmares, but other times it was because of the horrible pain she felt in her body.”

“But she’s a very determined girl and I think that’s why she recovered a lot.”

Govinda agreed. “She’s very strong.”

I WAS VERY, VERY SCARED

Trinity would require all her hardiness for what was to come next.

She had been responding well in chemotherapy and after being discharged, the family thought things were looking up – but a month later in August she contracted a raging fever and was hospitalised again.

While visiting her daughter Esther suddenly found Trinity unable to speak or move properly and quickly alerted the doctors.

It turned out she had developed a major fungal infection, due to her immune system being affected by the chemotherapy – and the infection had already spread to her brain, causing severe bleeding.

“There was a 4cm blood clot in her brain,” said Esther.

Trinity immediately went through an emergency operation. Ten days later, after exhibiting the same symptoms, she was taken in for a second surgery. This still failed to stop the advanced clotting and she was rushed right back into the theatre.

“The doctor told us the entire left side of her brain was bleeding,” said Esther. “It was a life and death situation. We had to sign a consent form – it was that critical.”

Trinity doesn’t remember much of the surgeries – except for the sadness before each. “I cried because I was very, very scared, because my mum couldn’t always hold on to me,” she said.

But there was more to fear. After the third operation, the neurosurgeon told Trinity’s parents he had done his best to take out as many blood clots – but there were consequences.

“Basically, he said I wouldn’t be taking back a normal child,” said Esther.

WE SAW HER BROKEN

Doctors had to carve out a hole in Trinity’s skull and dig deep to remove the clots, in the process touching major parts of her left brain, said Esther.

The result? “She couldn’t speak, couldn’t remember our names, couldn’t remember her ABCs, there was totally no movement on her right side, she lost her senses, and it took a while for her to respond when we spoke to her,” said Govinda.

“We saw her broken, bedridden, at only nine going on 10…” his wife trailed off, holding back tears.

With their daughter’s body not responding to food, doctors had to pump out up to a litre of gastric juices every day, and were considering putting her on tubes permanently.

Trinity remembers this “very frustrating” time. “I wanted to say the words, but I didn’t know why I couldn’t say it out… I think my brain didn’t listen to me.”

But the next year or so of Trinity’s “retraining”, as her father put it, left even doctors amazed, said Esther. “What she went through… it wasn’t expected for her to recover as soon as she did.”

Within weeks Trinity slowly started to speak and recall her memory with the help of family members and therapists patiently interacting with her.

“I still remember my mum started by teaching me three words: ‘I want to’, because I sometimes need this and that,” she laughed.

Once, when Trinity was just regaining her speech, she asked Esther if this was happening to her because she was “naughty or mean, or not a good girl”.

“I quickly brought her (two elder) sisters and (younger) brother and they hugged her and kissed her and told her she didn’t do anything wrong, this just happened and she was going to get out of it,” said their mother.

NEXT THING WE KNEW… SHE’S RUNNING

Then there was the impaired mobility on her right side, which meant Trinity had to switch master hands. “At first it felt really weird, but I slowly taught myself to use my left.”

After her discharge – two months from admission – she was still wheelchair-bound and needed to be carried around and bathed, but Trinity started telling herself she was going to get up and walk, said Esther.

She would wheel herself around the house using one leg, and use the window grille to strengthen her limbs by repeatedly sitting and standing. These exercises helped her eventually progress to a walking stick, but she still wasn’t stable, her mother recalled.

“Then the therapists started training her and next thing we knew, we threw away the stick and now she’s running.”

While Esther credits her family for sticking together as well as the Children’s Cancer Foundation for providing counselling, therapy and academic assistance, above all she believes it was Trinity’s own willpower which aided in her comeback.

“She’s an amazing girl,” said the proud mother. “Honestly, what we saw with our eyes… That was not something we thought could get any better.”

“The doctor said a lot of things about how she was going to be, but she didn’t just take that in and say ‘I’m going to be like that’ – if she did, I don’t think she’d be walking or running or talking or going back to school.”

Added Esther: “Every time I feel down or that I can’t do anything, I talk to her, and I get lifted. Because I know (what) she’s gone through, and she’s done it, and it motivates me.”

“We’ve learnt a lot of things from her,” said both father Govinda and eldest sister Tritassha.

I THOUGHT PEOPLE WOULDN’T TALK TO ME

After finishing intensive chemotherapy in May 2015, Trinity could finally install a titanium plate to fill the hole in her skull and the resulting depression at the side of her head.

She also went back to her primary school in January 2016, after a two-year-absence. “She puts on her own bag, carries her own stuff and goes to school on her own. She wants to do things independently,” said Esther.

Initially, Trinity struggled to pass her exams. The Education Ministry helped by extending hours for her oral and written papers, and after gradually getting back in the groove she has not failed a test since.

Trinity also had other doubts of the social sort. “I thought people wouldn’t talk to me because of my condition. But there’s one girl, she accepts me for who I am. She’s nice, she always helps me… This year, I have another friend.”

Said Esther: “She’s just glad she’s back in school and not sitting in hospital. She treasures this a lot, and is so thankful.”

There are still remnants of trying times past. Trinity sleeps in a hospital bed at home, and she recently had a second, sudden onset of seizures. Brain scans indicated improvement and she was discharged the same day – but her family is well aware she is not yet at a 100 per cent.

Her right hand still cannot grip well and there remains a slight drop foot on the same side, where she dons an ankle brace when going out. But Trinity is, as always, optimistic.

“I have no more difficulty walking about,” she said, with more than a hint of resoluteness. “It’s just my hand. The last bit… it’s just my hand.”

This close to victory, all bets are on Trinity – the cancer survivor, the girl who doesn’t give up – to do something about it.

SINGAPORE: 2017 marks a challenging year for ASEAN, the same year that ushers in 50 years since the organisation was formed.

As with any jubilee celebration, the association’s 10 countries share many significant milestones and recent achievements worth saluting, particularly in the area of security cooperation.

For the Asia Pacific, a region where unresolved territorial disputes – which do not seem likely to be settled any time soon – are potential hotspots for conflict, making diplomatic progress on key agreed principles that undergird countries’ approach to a dispute is the best way to keep all parties engaged in finding a meaningful resolution.

So it is a relief to see significant effort to make progress in the South China Sea culminate in the promulgation of the Framework on the Code of Conduct between ASEAN and China early last month in Manila.

ACTION MORE THAN TALK

As 2017 comes toward a close and the regional bloc’s chairmanship transits from the Philippines to Singapore, we should expect to see further concrete activities and measures to promote peace and stability in this area.

For a country known more for action than talk, and also a neutral party that has no territorial stake in the South China Sea, Singapore stands best placed to advance ASEAN’s agenda in this area.

Having actively shaped security cooperation in the Asia Pacific to make practical cooperation among 18 countries under the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus a reality with joint exercises and professional exchanges, and being a small state that has a knack for making hard-nosed calculations about regional security, Singapore has the instincts to shape the way forward on this issue.

This is not to say that we wish away geopolitical realities of the intractability of territorial disputes and the long process of negotiation. 

Political elites and policymakers will likely engage in lengthy discussions over specifics for the Code of Conduct, and indeed, this mechanism would take time to materialise.

But in the interim, practical realities demand that maritime practitioners – the navies and coastguards in this case – devise ways to prevent and mitigate close encounters in these geopolitically contentious waters.

Strong relationships based on habits of cooperation and trust among security agencies in the larger Asia-Pacific to ensure that tensions do not get out of hand and misunderstanding on the ground doesn’t spiral into an armed exchange cannot be understated.

Open channels of communications and clear actions that all sides agree to take in the event of an incident are critical ingredients to regional peace and stability in the South China Sea.

In essence, security agencies will have to keep peace in the short term while the foreign affairs policymakers work together for a shot at peace in the long term.

One such initiative integral to regional countries’ efforts in this regard is the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a “gentleman’s agreement” among 21 navies who have signed this code and agreed to its set of ground rules on managing encounters between naval vessels.

There has been generally positive compliance with it among regional navies. CUES has been practised by the Americans and Chinese in the South China Sea, for example. It has also formed part of the training and exercise engagements between some regional navies.

The time has come for CUES be extended to other realms, starting with the coastguards, most of whom work the frontlines in the Asia-Pacific maritime hotspots, before including other agencies who guard in deeper waters and higher above ground.

SAFETY IN THE AIR

During the Shangri-La Dialogue in June 2017, Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen proposed a set of guidelines for air encounters between military aircrafts of ASEAN states, similar to those agreed to by the US and China in September 2015 and captured in the US-China Memorandum of Understanding on the rules of behaviour for air and maritime encounters.

Given the increasing capacities and sophistication of Southeast Asian air assets, the implementation of guidelines of behaviour is becoming an increasingly urgent task.

Air assets have a high chance of meeting with an accident during a close encounter due to their high speed of travel. The weapons they carry are also deadlier and have longer range compared to one or two decades ago.

Once such an incident occurs, interstate or regional tensions will inevitably spike, as demonstrated by the political fallout from the 2001 Hainan incident where a US Navy intelligence aircraft and a Chinese J-8 fighter crashed into each other, resulting in the death of the Chinese pilot and the detention of the American crew in China.

Guidelines are needed not only to lower the possibility of a major air incident in the region, but also to provide a way to manage tensions should one take place.

SAFETY AT SEA FOR SUBMARINES

At the same time, Dr Ng has proposed extending CUES to the underwater realm as a preventive measure against proliferation – Asian-Pacific navies are expected to hold arsenals of some 250 to 300 submarines by 2030.

Some progress has been made in terms of enhancing information exchange to prevent a collision of submarines in the region, with the Republic of Singapore Navy’s launch of a Submarine Safety Information Portal earlier in May this year, which helps outline potential maritime hazards such as surface traffic and seabed obstacles on a common platform.

Recent ship collisions such as the USS John McCain’s highlighted the prevalent dangers of navigating narrow maritime confines plied by dense traffic.

Though these mishaps involved surface vessels, the potential risk of accidents involving submarines cannot be discounted.

Region-wide acceptance of CUES, which stipulate standard operating procedures for submarine crew to take while on mission, will go some way to entrench this culture of safety and de-escalation during an unplanned incident at sea and complement information sharing and submarine emergency rescue capabilities.

This is all the more pertinent because submariners have limited communications with their shore bases once out at sea. The onus is on them to ensure safety in their routine duties and interaction with various users sharing the same water space, above and below.

TASKS CUT OUT FOR SINGAPORE AS ASEAN CHAIR

Being the next after the Philippines to take on the mantle of ASEAN chairmanship, there is much ground for Singapore to cover next year as ASEAN and China look set to engage in serious, intense discussion about the Code of Conduct.

Singapore should take the lead to push for the extension of CUES or promote similar arrangements in other domains, not just to coastguards but also to the aerial and underwater dimensions.

Ideally, in its capacity as ASEAN chair in 2018, Singapore could facilitate talks between ASEAN and its dialogue partners, such as through the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus or ASEAN Regional Forum, as the most desirable route to apply these extended CUES more universally throughout the regional maritime domain.

However, short of such broad participation, one possible alternative would be to promote discussions first as a purely ASEAN-level initiative, which can later expand to include other interested extra-regional partners.

In so doing, ASEAN will be working towards maintaining, and even enhancing, its relevance in regional peace and stability.

While such guidelines should be binding, the mere act of promulgating these codes will help develop norms of good behaviour at sea and in the air, and ultimately lead to better communication and reduce miscalculation among security forces in the region.

The current tranquility in the regional maritime hotspots may well be temporary, as history has shown how abrupt domestic and geopolitical upheavals could potentially upend peace and stability.

Given the fluid and fast-evolving nature of the maritime security environment, it is necessary for regional governments to adopt a more proactive, rather than passive, posture in coping with future challenges.

ASEAN has charted a remarkable course in 50 years, particularly in security cooperation. With Singapore as chair, it is well-placed to go further in 2018.

Henrick Z Tsjeng and Collin Koh are researchers at the Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies based in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

SINGAPORE: For about 20 minutes on a Monday evening, 15-year-old Shamil and his two friends milled about inside the street football court at Chai Chee Street, randomly taking shots at goal.

Despite wanting more than just a kickabout, the three young players waited in vain for more people to turn up. 

With no one to compete against, the group quickly got bored and left before sunset to do something else. The sound of laughter among friends and balls pinging against the steel goalpost soon made way for total silence, as the court was left deserted and unused for the rest of the evening.

“Sometimes, there will be guys playing street soccer here. But mostly it’s like this,” said Shamil.

The scene at Chai Chee is often seen in other neighborhoods. After spending a few hours in the evenings at a number of similar facilities around Singapore, Channel NewsAsia observed that many free-to-play street soccer courts are rarely used.

“Casual street soccer is dead in Singapore,” said Ashraf Ariffin, who is a youth football coach at L’s Football Academy, which offers training to children and teenagers. “The sight of neighborhood street soccer courts being active with casual and random games in the evening – that culture is now no more.

“Youngsters would rather be indoors, instead of picking up a football and heading to the neighborhoods to play with their friends or with other boys,” said Ashraf, 30, who used to play street football every day as a child.

Ashraf observed that the previous culture of random street games which thrived in the late 90s and early 2000s is disappearing at a rapid rate. “In fact, I struggle to think of any courts in the east of Singapore now which have some sort of regular street soccer games going on.”

SHIFTING CULTURES

The scene of near-empty street soccer courts was played out again at the futsal arena along Woodlands Ave 1, where 8-year-old Shiva and his 4 friends were having a casual game of two-on-two on a weekday afternoon.

With no one else joining in, there was no chance of a proper match. 

“Not many kids play football these days. Many of my friends prefer computer games … in air-con rooms,” said the Fuchun Primary School student.

The current decline in the popularity of street football contrasts with the childhood days of 36-year-old Jasper Richard Thomas, who is a futsal coach with Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).

“When I was young I carried a ball everywhere I went. I’d find like-minded kids to play with and we’d play at the void deck either two against two or three against three,” said Thomas, who is also a coach at ActiveSG academy.

“Now you definitely don’t see this, as technology has taken over, with kids playing computer or mobile games,” he said. 

“During the 80s and 90s in Sembawang, youths were playing football anywhere and everywhere. It was like a ‘Little Brazil’,” he added. “I know about 14 to 15 ex-national players from Sembawang alone.”

One such player who learnt his game on the streets in northern Singapore in the early 1990s is former Singapore international Noh Alam Shah, who was talent-spotted as a kid in his neighborhood. “I never went to football academies as a kid growing up,” said Alam Shah, who played professionally in Indonesia at one point. “I’m pretty much a street football guy.  While other kids were busy studying, I would be at the void deck playing football.

 “I was spotted at a void deck in Yishun and was then invited for a trial at Woodlands Wellington. They were having trials for their Under-16s back in the day, and so I was asked to join the selection,” he recalled.

He laments the current lack of interest in street football among children and teenagers in recent times. “Whenever there was a football trial in those days, there would be hundreds of youngsters who’d go down.

“Nowadays, when you hold trials, no matter how you market it, there won’t be many kids showing up,” said the former national striker, who is now a grassroots coach at ActiveSG.

OF PARENTS AND ACADEMIC IMPORTANCE

A number of factors are contributing to the lack of interest in street football, according to L’s Football Academy coach Ashraff. He believes the lack of playing space is a major issue. “The main problem now is that there are hardly any spaces where kids can play casual football whenever they’d like, out of their own free will.

“At certain void decks, there are even spikes high up on the walls purposely installed to deflate footballs when hit,” he said.

As a result, fewer youngsters are inclined to take the initiative to organise a random pick-up game with their peers. “You don’t see kids walking around carrying a ball – any ball, be it plastic balls, worn-out footballs and the like,” he said. 

Former national futsal player Oswind Suriya Rosayro, who represented Singapore at the 2015 AFF Futsal Championships, thinks heavy academic commitments in school are also partially to blame. “Street football is in the decline because of the added stress kids have from school and academics,” he said.

“School hours have been lengthened, as there are supplementary classes and co-curricular activities to think about. Some kids stay in school till after 6pm for school-related activities.

“Not forgetting tuition classes on top of more tuition classes. Parents are more academic-conscious now compared to the last generation and I don’t blame them as the syllabus is crazy these days,” added Oswind, a former S-League player with now-defunct Woodlands Wellington.

“Childhoods are also changing for the modern youth, which I don’t think is a bad thing. But they’d definitely benefit from a social, fun kick-about twice or thrice a week.”

Former Lion Alam Shah believes parents are another reason for the fading street soccer culture. “In those days, from 430pm onwards, almost every kid in my neighborhood would be downstairs at the void deck playing football till sunset,” he said.

“Such a sight is already missing these days, and one of the reasons is due to the culture of parents not allowing kids to go and play on their own.

“Some parents feel that it would be easier to control their kids if they are staying at home,” he added. “These days parents who can afford it would rather to send their kids to academies.”

BENEFITS OF STREET FOOTBALL

Having been actively involved in the grassroots coaching scene, Thomas thinks the current gap in technical skills in youth players is down to their lack of exposure to street soccer. “Learning on the streets makes kids think on the spot – they will have to figure out how to improvise and think about what to do in small-space situations,” he said.

“This is different in football academies, where everything is being controlled.”

He added: “I draw my experience from having coached at various levels here in Singapore, from grassroots to youth. Sometimes when a new boy comes in to my team, he’d feel somewhat unmotivated as he would have been used to an academy system where he is always told what to do.”

Without spontaneous games of street football, Thomas believes grassroots football will not progress much. “In Singapore, there isn’t really any street soccer scene to speak of,” he said. “That shouldn’t be the case as the majority of world-class players had their roots in futsal and football in the streets.

“Why are South American players good? It’s because they started playing futsal at a very young age.”

He elaborated further on the technical benefits it brings, especially to kids who are only beginning to realise their talents. “Futsal naturally gives you the skills to play football,” said Thomas.

“If you’re good in futsal, then you’re definitely going to do well in football,” he said. “First and foremost, you’ll know how to play in small areas. You work on your footwork, pushing and pulling the ball under pressure in tight corners.”

“You’ll be forced to adapt to situations using your own technique, plus it also develops footballing instinct.”

According to Thomas, Singapore’s current lack of good, young strikers is the direct result of the dearth of street football. ” The lack of players with skillful footwork, in addition to having good striker’s instincts, is a national problem,” he said.

“We lack good strikers not only at the national team, but also at all levels. We simply don’t have proper forwards nurtured from young with a basis of playing futsal,” he explained.

“I believe that it is through futsal that kids will be nurtured into better players.”