The strong bilateral relationship between Singapore and Mexico can be the foundation for both countries to strengthen their partnership on several levels, said President Tony Tan Keng Yam on Saturday (yesterday, Singapore time) as he wrapped up his five-day state visit to the Latin American country.

On the broadest level, both countries can contribute to boosting relations between the two big regions they are in, he said.

Dr Tan said Mexico is a good gateway for Singapore to grow its presence in Latin America, while Singapore is a springboard for Mexico to enter Asia.

As both countries belong to regional alliances – Singapore is part of Asean while Mexico is a member of the four-country Pacific Alliance – strong ties between both sides will help strengthen relations between the two groupings that account for 800 million people, he said.

But most crucial of all is the bilateral relationship between Singapore and Mexico, said Dr Tan, adding that the memorandums of understanding (MOU) signed during this visit will boost partnership.

A total of six MOUs, most at the government level aimed at promoting trade and investment, were signed during his visit.

“The MOUs will set the stage for these developments, but it doesn’t mean they will come automatically. We will have to build on them,” he said.

He noted that his state visit has raised the visibility of Singapore in Mexico, but Singapore ministries, agencies and businesses will have to actively seek out opportunities.

There are now 41 Singapore firms operating in Mexico, and 81 Mexican firms operating in Singapore.

Dr Tan said the energy and economic reforms of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration could change that. When implemented, these reforms will “make Mexico more open, comprehensive, attractive to companies and more international”, he said.

He also pledged Singapore’s help for Mexican companies to expand in Asia.

“We want to encourage more Mexican companies to come to Singapore… I think it’s a two-way street,” he said.

He added that with Mexico opening up, there will be more opportunities for Singapore. For instance, Mexico is looking to develop its port and airport, areas in which Singapore has expertise.

During the trip, Dr Tan and Mr Pena Nieto also discussed the Trans- Pacific Partnership, which Singapore and Mexico are members of. When ratified, it will help to boost trade between both countries.

Dr Tan, who visited several museums including the National History Museum during his trip, said he also hoped to encourage more cultural exchanges between both countries.

He said, for instance, that Singapore’s budding film industry can learn from Mexico’s film industry, citing how Mexican films have an international presence.

He added that Singaporeans are also learning Spanish.

“I hope more Singapore students will come to Mexico,” he said.

Dr Tan, who met Mr Pena Nieto on Thursday, has invited him to visit Singapore. The Mexican President’s visit would go some way in strengthening Mexico’s presence in the city-state and raise awareness of the country among Singaporeans, he added.

Dr Tan left Mexico for Singapore on Saturday evening (yesterday morning, Singapore time).

This article was first published on Jun 13, 2016.
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Four hours – that was the time it took for businessman Ong Tiong Yeow to write his father’s obituary, a frank, heartfelt poem that has since gone viral on social media.

Four hours was also how long he took to pack his things and leave his family home as a 23-year-old, after his father, Mr Ong Peck Lye, threw him out for standing up to him.

The elder Mr Ong, a wealthy rubber tyre businessman, died of pneumonia last Wednesday aged 82 and was cremated yesterday.

He is survived by his wife, Madam Han Boon Keng, 82, and three sons, aged 46 to 54.

Mr Ong, 52, his second son, penned the tribute as a poem in the first person, based on conversations with his father in his last days.

The verses depicted the complex humanity of his father, describing not just his charitable nature and flamboyance, but also his ego and conflicts with his family.

“I dared to live and now I dare to die,” concludes the poem. “I am Ong Peck Lye.”

The obituary, which was in The Straits Times on Friday, was shared on Facebook by user Robin Rheaume and had garnered over 4,300 likes and 1,200 shares as of 8pm last night.

Many were moved by the honesty of the poem, which admits that “My last days were dreary and weary” and that “I never got to see my father be/ A husband to my mother so/ I made mistakes being both,/ Trying to be as human as I know.”

The late Mr Ong was born in 1935 into poverty, fatherless from a young age. He worked his way from a slum along the Kallang River into prosperity after he co-founded the Stamford Tyres business empire.

He showered his children with privilege, but their relationships were complicated – at some point, he evicted each of them from their bungalow in Upper Serangoon.

Mr Ong said his older brother was thrown out after he converted to Christianity and married into a Eurasian family. His younger brother followed after coming out as gay. Both left Singapore, the oldest moving to Australia and the youngest to the United States.

Said Mr Ong: “My father died before he had the chance to ask my brothers to forgive him.”

He himself was ordered to leave when he fought with his father about the treatment of his mother.

He said: “The poem is also a tribute to my mum. My father bullied her, scolded her, kept mistresses – but she tahan (Malay for endure) until the end.”

Madam Han said in Mandarin: “We had good times and bad times. He was a generous man. I loved him and he loved me.”

Together, she and Mr Ong nursed her late husband through seven years of dementia.

Mr Ong said his father had asked him to move back home a few years after he was kicked out. “He got lonely,” he said.

He recalled returning laden with artwork from the beauty pageant franchising company he had set up, determined to show his father how successful he had been. “My father looked at me and said, ‘I don’t care about all this. I missed you.’

“After that, I did not leave his side again for 25 years.”

In the obituary, Mr Ong dubbed himself the “samseng” son. “Samseng” is Malay for gangster. He said this was because in his youth, he was rebellious and did poorly in school. But he was a prolific poet then and wrote more than 500 poems, though none was published.

When he was 16, his father bought him a pickup truck and had him deliver goods after school from the godown to the docks. He would often have to go out to the ships and climb a few storeys up their sides to get the captain to sign the papers.

“He wanted to toughen me up, to show me the same hard life he had led,” said Mr Ong.

Mr Ong, who has a nine-year-old daughter, said he wrote the poem to share the lessons from his father’s life. “We have only one chance in life to be a husband and a father. We learn what we can from our parents, but we only have one chance to get it right ourselves.”

This article was first published on Jun 13, 2016.
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JAKARTA – Indonesia will not allow Singapore to prosecute its citizens over forest fires that blanketed the region in toxic smog in 2015, media on Monday quoted Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla as saying.

Singapore media said last week the city-state was planning to prosecute Indonesian polluters in Singapore courts under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act.

Home to the world’s third-largest area of tropical forests, Indonesia has been criticised by green activists and by neighbouring Southeast Asian nations for failing to stop the region’s annual “haze” caused by forest-clearing for palm and pulp plantations.

“The law that applies is in Indonesia,” Kalla told reporters as quoted by Detik.com media portal.

Palm oil is a major growth driver for Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the edible oil.

Indonesia’s president pledged in April to tackle the fires by imposing a moratorium on expansion of plantations.

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

Reuters, AFP, The Straits Times, Berita Harian

Hostel dormitories in secondary schools and junior colleges here mostly cater to international students from regional countries like Malaysia, Vietnam and China.

In recent years, however, more local students have been spotted in these hostels, folding their clothes or cleaning their rooms as they learn to live independently under boarding programmes introduced by several schools offering the Integrated Programme (IP).

At least four IP schools have these boarding programmes, lasting from 10 weeks to a year.

Fees range from about $350 to $700 for four weeks.

In 2007, then Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam announced a boarding scheme for Singaporean students to encourage schools to produce all-round stronger individuals with more appetite for intellectual exploration.

He said then: “A close-knit and familial learning environment allows for meaningful interactions among students from different social and cultural backgrounds. It also instils a sense of social responsibility in students as they learn to look after one another.”

Since then, several schools have expanded their boarding programmes, citing positive feedback and growing demand from students who favour not just the convenience of staying close to school, but also the camaraderie and opportunities for experiential learning.

The NUS High School of Mathematics and Science’s compulsory boarding programme was started for all Year 5 students in 2008, with about 150 to 170 students joining it a year.

Besides offering them the chance to acquire life skills such as cooking, ironing, doing the laundry and cleaning, it also provides a conducive environment for students to complete their advanced research projects, a graduation requirement for all NUS High students, said a spokesman.

Since then, “a handful” of students from each Year 5 cohort have chosen to extend their stay as they want to stay closer to the school and participate in the programmes.

Alumni have also said that the year spent at the boarding school has “equipped the boys with skills to cope better during their national service days and has made the transition to university life easier for the girls”, said NUS High.

Ms Lim Guat Ha, the head of Nanyang Girls’ Boarding School, said the school’s four-week boarding programme for Secondary 2 students has evolved since it began in 2011.

“The idea was to expose them to the international boarders here, and let them learn a bit of independence away from home,” she said.

Previously, students did not go through the programme with all their classmates.

Since last year, the whole class has gone for the programme at the same time.

They are allowed to pair up with a student of their choice and share a room with another pair.

While it is not compulsory, every year, over 90 per cent of the school’s Sec 2 students take part in the programme.

Every week, time is allocated for small group sessions comprising 12 to 14 students each in which students discuss and reflect on personal goals or their boarding experience.

International students are invited to join the sessions, allowing both groups a chance to get to know one another better on top of day-to-day interactions at the dining hall and common areas.

There are two excursions – to Pulau Ubin and Little India – but with a new spin.

Students plan their own itinerary for an evening excursion to Little India, and make their own travel arrangements.

Besides trekking and kayaking on a one-day trip to Pulau Ubin, they are also expected to plan their own meals and map out their route during the trek to the Chek Jawa wetlands by using available signs.

Interest in the boarding programmes at Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) and Raffles Institution (RI), has grown over the years.

At HCI, a one-year programme was piloted in 2008 involving 50 Sec 3 and 4 students.

Students now board for only 20 weeks.

The programme caters mainly to Sec 3 students.

This year, about 180 of them have joined the programme, up from around 100 in 2013, said Dr Joseph Tan, the director of HCI’s boarding school.

In 2008, the Raffles Leadership Programme (Boarding) started as a trial, with 54 student leaders.

It is now a full-cohort programme for Year 3 students, lasting 10 weeks.

The programmes are rotated so that students take turns to stay at the boarding school.

This ensures there is enough space for everyone.

The schools have special areas of focus.

At HCI, skills that the boarding programme aims to develop include entrepreneurial skills and leadership qualities.

Students attend evening programmes for around two hours each week, and can opt for additional electives.

They can attend dinner sessions with alumni, held thrice a term, to learn about the alumni’s entrepreneurship experiences.

RI’s boarding scheme has an emphasis on leadership development, community education and self-development.

Next term, RI will start a joint residential leadership programme with 22 students from other schools in the cluster.

Student leaders from Bishan Park Secondary, Peirce Secondary, Guangyang Secondary and Whitley Secondary will join RI students in their boarding programme, working together on community projects such as home refurbishment for residents of rental units.

“The purpose is to create inclusivity and opportunities for students from various schools to work on projects,” said a spokesman, adding that the pilot may be extended to more non-RI students if it is well-received.

Separately, the Ministry of Education has a Boarding Awards Scheme, which allows Singaporean students whose parents work or live overseas to stay in hostels here, thus enabling students to continue their studies in Singapore.

About 50 students are now on this scheme, double that of when it was first introduced in 1998.

Ethan Wong, a Sec 2 student at Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), has been staying in the school hostel since the start of this year.

His family is now in Australia as his father, an acting managing director, was posted there in 2014.

“There are many friends at the boarding school and I’m never alone. I have learnt to be more independent,” he said.

His mother, housewife Agnes Yang, 40, said: “We felt it would be a big waste to give up (the opportunity to stay at the hostel) as the overseas posting is for only about two years and we didn’t wish to disrupt his education here.”

yuensin@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on June 13, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.