From children’s author J.K. Rowling to a Malaysian beauty queen and candidates in Singapore’s general election, it seems barely a day goes by without another high-profile person falling foul of “cancel culture”.
Indeed, establishment writers, thinkers and journalists have become so worried by the trend that 150 of them – including the Harry Potter author, who has come under fire for her comments on transgender people – wrote to Harper’s Bazaar magazine earlier this month, to warn of an “intolerant climate” emerging on the political left.
This new way of thinking, they said, was marked by “an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty”. J.K. Rowling recently disclosed she had been a victim of domestic abuse and sexual assault. PHOTO: ReutersThe act of “cancelling” someone takes place when a public figure acts or makes remarks deemed racist, sexist, bigoted or otherwise offensive.
The outcome of the recent general election was good for Singapore, and reflects a desire among Singaporeans for a new balance in politics, said Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Sunday (July 19).
The country’s politics has changed permanently, he said in a Facebook post. “We will have to make this new balance work well for Singapore.”
That will happen if there is vigorous and informed debate between the People’s Action Party and opposition on policies, “with both sides treating the other with equanimity”, he added.
Mr Tharman said the results were good for the PAP for two reasons. First, the ruling party secured a solid mandate with 61.2 per cent of the popular vote.
“Trust in the PAP to run government and do what is best for Singaporeans is intact,” he noted.
Second, the 8.7 per cent swing in vote share from the 69.9 per cent that the PAP secured in 2015 – which Mr Tharman described as an “unrepeatable high” – is leading the party “to review its own game so as to win the hearts, and not just the minds, of a changing electorate”.
SINGAPORE – The Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) have apologised for informing a migrant worker that he had tested positive for Covid-19 only three weeks after he was swabbed, citing an “administrative error” while he was tested.
However, there was no impact on the “appropriateness of the clearance strategy” for Toh Guan Dormitory – where the worker was staying with 11 roommates – or the treatment and care of all the workers there, the ministries said in a joint statement on Sunday (July 19).
The ministries were responding to media queries over Facebook posts made by Ms Tsjin Chandra Dolly and Ms Kelly Soh on July 15.
The Straits Times understands that Ms Tsjin, Ms Soh and the worker belong to the same company.
In their separate posts, Ms Tsjin and Ms Soh said the worker was informed only on July 13 that he had tested positive for Covid-19. He subsequently told them about it on the same day.
The worker had undergone the swab test on June 22, Ms Soh said.
Both women said they were told by MOH on July 13 that the ministry required 24 hours to arrange for the worker to be moved out of the dormitory room.
SINGAPORE: When asked to describe a typical lunchtime situation before COVID-19 at her fashion store, Butterflies & Marigolds, Ms Elsie Szto said with a laugh: “The store would be swarmed with women who are stressed at work.”
Located at Guoco Tower – a skyscraper in Tanjong Pagar – a queue at the fitting room during lunch hour would not be a rare sight. But when asked about her business now, Ms Szto’s desperation is palpable.
“It’s like a ghost town now, I have almost zero walk-in customers,” she said. “Sales are dismal.”
Ever since Phase 2 of reopening started on Jun 19 after the COVID-19 “circuit breaker”, retail outlets have resumed operations and dining in at food and beverages (F&B) outlets has been permitted.
Yet, those located in the Central Business District (CBD) told CNA that they are still facing challenges ever since the reopening. With the majority of their customers still working from home, businesses are losing their office crowd – which was once their core customer base.
DINE-IN CUSTOMERS STILL “SPARSE”
The lack of a lunchtime crowd would be most deeply felt by F&B businesses located in the CBD, which rely heavily on the hungry stomachs of office workers in the vicinity.
Mr Zilch Ng, who owns a stall at Amoy Street Food Centre, said that revenue has been “pretty much the same” even since dining-in was allowed. His stall, Lagoon In A Bowl, serves up butterfly pea rice bowls.
“We are very affected … there’s no dine-in crowd because our main crowd is from the offices,” the 34-year-old said.
This is why islandwide delivery, a service that he launched on Facebook over the circuit breaker period, still makes up 80 per cent of his revenue.
While the other 20 per cent comes largely from takeaways, Mr Ng said that hawkers are still paying for table-cleaning and centralised dishwashing services, which were subsidised by the National Environment Agency until May.
“People are dining in but it’s still very sparse. So we are paying a lot for things that we don’t utilise,” he lamented.
“But we understand that cleaners still have to be paid and this is where we contribute.”
Similarly, S-City Cafe, an eatery at Collyer Quay’s The Arcade, is experiencing a slow return of sales given that the CBD crowd makes up “about 95 per cent” of its business, said catering manager Darren Kwek.
S-City Cafe at The Arcade. (Photo: S-City Cafe Facebook)
“In the past during lunch or peak hours, we would serve up to 300 people in a day. Right now it’s about 50.”
Since the implementation of the circuit breaker, Mr Kwek has experienced a 90 per cent drop in revenue and the “uncertainty in forecasting of sales” will continue to be a challenge as most of his clientele remain at home.
GRADUAL RETURN FOR AESTHETIC SERVICES
For businesses offering aesthetic services, there is also a huge reliance on the schedules of their regular customers, many of whom are working from home and not coming into the CBD so often, if at all.
“Our core customers are mostly from the office and what has been happening is that they’ve been adjusting their appointments to fit their work-from-home schedule,” said Ms Evonne Ng, the Head of Marketing for Mizu Aesthetic Clinic at Marina Bay Link Mall.
“Some of them come back to the office every two weeks.”
While the clinic took a hit during the circuit breaker period and Phase 1 of reopening, Ms Ng said that there were a lot of clients who were “waiting to come back”.
“(In the past) we saw our core regulars come in around lunchtime or in the evenings. But during this period of time, there are a lot of people who are forced to clear leave – now they can take a half-day off from home and get things done at the clinic.”
Where regulars from the CBD have declined in number in Phase 2, Ms Ng said that the clinic makes up for it through “more intensive procedures”, which are more expensive and popular in this period.
“These are procedures that will make your face swell … and you will need some downtime (for recovery),” she added. Examples of such procedures are skin resurfacing and high-intensity focused ultrasound treatment.
Bonita, a salon that offers a range of services from waxing and facials to henna hair colouring, has outlets at Orchid Hotel and One Raffles Place. Its director Ms Uppkar Kaur said there was a steady recovery of sales when Phase 2 first started in June.
“Pre-COVID-19, we would serve around 80 customers in a day per outlet. In June, we were serving 70 a day.”
However, maintaining the sales in July has been a challenge.
Ms Kaur attributed the initial strong return of customers to the fact that “everyone wanted to look and feel good again”, after having no access to these services for at least 2 months.
“(Customers felt that) they needed to get these services before (the Government) says, okay we need to shut it down again. That was the reason why everyone just jumped in.”
With many offices staying shut coupled with concerns about the risk of community spread of the virus, Ms Kaur believes that sales are affected as customers are cautious towards certain services that require close contact with staff.
Both Mizu Aesthetic Clinic and Bonita said they have stepped up their hygiene practices but that also comes with trade-offs for the businesses. Ms Ng said that at least 10 to 15 minutes have to be set aside for cleaning after a procedure, which has impacted the scheduling of appointments.
For Ms Kaur, it is the provision of disposable gowns, gloves, masks and shields that has increased the expenses by 20 per cent – despite a 40 to 50 per cent fall in revenue over the past three months.
“We knew it had to be done … we need to protect our customers, at the same time we need to protect ourselves,” she added.
RENTAL WOES AHEAD
As businesses in CBD are finding their footing again with the reopening, another concern looms ahead – the ceasing of rental waivers come August.
In June, Singapore’s Parliament passed amendments to the COVID-19 regulations, which required commercial property owners to give eligible tenants a waiver of base rent for June and July.
“From August onwards, we are back to paying 50 per cent of the rental fees and then September onwards, we’re back to paying the full rent,” said Mr Ng of Lagoon In A Bowl.
“Our rental is very expensive: Including miscellaneous free and Goods & Services Tax, it’s S$6,000 per month.”
Mg Ng added that the rental waivers were a “huge help” in this period as it helped him keep his costs low. If he has to pay the full amount come September, the business “will start taking a loss”.
“Since we do not know when COVID-19 will end, we are hoping that there will be a rental waiver till December.”
Other businesses that CNA spoke to said that they are currently in talks with their landlords for rental costs after August.
Ms Szto of Butterflies & Marigolds said she is trying to propose Gross Turnover Rent – which is a percentage of the business turnover generated – to her landlord, so that she can “share the pain”.
She said that when the lease was signed, rental was “reasonable” bearing in mind the footfall at Guoco Tower, which is linked to Tanjong Pagar, one of the busier MRT stations.
“But now the footfall is zero now. So the rental should come down. To say that in August everything will go back to normal is quite idealistic.”
The storefront of Butterflies & Marigolds during Phase 2 of reopening. (Photo: Butterflies & Marigolds)
REACHING OUT TO THOSE BEYOND CBD
Responding to queries from CNA, OUE Limited – which is the developer for CBD malls like OUE Downtown and One Raffles Place – said that its malls are still experiencing low traffic “as many companies are still practicing WFH or activating Business Continuity Planning”.
“The traffic headcount is about 30 per cent of what it used to be,” its spokesperson said in an email reply.
However, OUE said that “there is little” that it can do to drive physical traffic to the malls due to work-from-home arrangements. Instead, it is encouraging retail tenants to work on e-commerce and F&B tenants to “build on their deliveries”.
That is the strategy that most businesses that CNA spoke to have started to adopt. For instance, Butterflies & Marigolds launched an online store last week for the first time – after operating as a brick-and-mortar business for 15 years.
“We also started to do live streaming of our staff trying on the clothes so that we can show our customers how they look,” said Ms Szto.
“We do get some sales that way and it makes for good interaction. Customers can see that we are trying.”
As for Bonita, it is planning to start its own product line to sell online – so the next time a pandemic happens again, there will be “some income”.
“If things do not get better in the CBD, we definitely have to think of where else we can open, perhaps somewhere with a residential crowd since people are working from home,” said Ms Kaur.
“There are still opportunities out there, you just need to look in that direction.”
SINGAPORE: Several new locations have been added to the list of places visited by COVID-19 cases in the community during their infectious period, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Sunday (Jul 19).
The locations include Chong Pang City Wet Market & Food Centre, Kampung Admiralty Hawker Centre, Ocean Curry Fish Head, Mustafa Centre, HAO Mart, Thasevi Food, the ActiveSG Gym at Fernvale Square, yakitori restaurant LECOQ, a SaladStop! outlet at The Metropolis and food stall 313 KPT.
Several shopping malls were also added to the list – VivoCity, IMM, Sun Plaza and Hall 6 of FilmGarde cinema at Bugis+.
Those identified as close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases would have been notified by MOH, said the ministry.
It added that people who have been at these locations during the specified timings should monitor their health closely for 14 days from their date of visit.
“They should see a doctor promptly if they develop symptoms of acute respiratory infection (such as cough, sore throat and runny nose), as well as fever and loss of taste or smell, and inform the doctor of their exposure history,” said MOH.
“There is no need to avoid places where confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been.”
The National Environment Agency will also engage the management of affected premises to provide guidance on cleaning and disinfection.
SINGAPORE – After several people questioned why a “foreigner” was singing this year’s National Day Parade (NDP) song Everything I Am, the song’s performer, Nathan Hartono, has clarified that he is a Singaporean.
In a Facebook post on Saturday (July 18), singer-songwriter Hartono, 28, said he is proud to be a first-generation Singaporean who has done his two years of national service.
In a series of accompanying pictures, including one with a lone tear rolling down his cheek, he shared a selection of Facebook comments on his NDP song, which had questioned his nationality.
SINGAPORE – The newly elected Sengkang GRC MPs from the Workers’ Party have informed the Ministry of National Development that they intend to run the new Sengkang Town Council on its own, without merging with any other constituency.
In a Facebook post on Sunday (July 19) to update residents on developments, WP’s Sengkang team leader He Ting Ru also said she would chair the new town council.
She added that her team had written to both Ang Mo Kio Town Council (AMKTC) and Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council (PRPTC) on July 11 to request a preliminary meeting to discuss the handover.
The Anchorvale ward in the new GRC is currently managed by AMKTC, while the Punggol East and Sengkang Central areas are overseen by the PRPTC.
Last Wednesday, the WP team made a specific request for copies of the contracts for managing agent services and use of town council management software to be provided to them as soon as possible, she said.
“PRPTC, whom we understand to be coordinating the handover with AMKTC, suggested a virtual meeting on Friday, July 17,” she added.
SINGAPORE – After several people questioned why a “foreigner” was singing this year’s National Day Parade (NDP) song Everything I Am, the song’s performer, Nathan Hartono, has clarified that he is a Singaporean.
In a Facebook post on Saturday (July 18), singer-songwriter Hartono, 28, said he is proud to be a first-generation Singaporean who has done his two years of national service.
In a series of accompanying pictures, including one with a lone tear rolling down his cheek, he shared a selection of Facebook comments on his NDP song, which had questioned his nationality.
It has been four months since Mr Terry Mariyadas, 35, was separated from his family, and his wife is worried sick.
Their daily video calls end in teary goodbyes and the stress of having to care for her two young sons – aged two and almost one – without her husband, has caused Madam Kanamah Rathinasamy, 33, to lose almost 30kg.
“Whenever I see her (over video chat) I will remind her to eat,” said Mr Mariyadas about his wife.
Mr Mariyadas is Malaysian. He is also the sole breadwinner of the family and has been stuck in Singapore since mid-March, when Malaysia’s movement control order was enacted.
It is still unclear whether he will be allowed to visit his family in Johor Baru under the recently announced reciprocal green lane and periodic commuting arrangement. But the senior technician is hopeful that his wait to see his family will soon be over.
“If I could just see them and hold my sons, that is all that I want. Just a few days back home is enough,” he said.
SINGAPORE – The Workers’ Party (WP) will continue to give “forward-looking suggestions for the welfare of Singaporeans” despite facing resource constraints, said party chief Pritam Singh on Saturday (July 18).
He noted that unlike the Government, which can tap a 120,000-strong civil service as a resource for parliamentary debates, the WP continues to rely mainly on its volunteer base for political work.
“The extent to which realistic policy alternatives can be advanced both in public and in Parliament is also a function of the PAP’s approach to democratic politics,” said Mr Singh, who has been designated Leader of the Opposition.
What remains to be seen, he added, is if the People’s Action Party (PAP) government will become more open in sharing information.
The Aljunied GRC MP was responding to National Development Minister Lawrence Wong, who said in a speech to PAP activists that the WP “cannot just continue asking the Government questions”.
It is also the opposition party’s duty to put forward serious policy alternatives to be scrutinised and debated, now that it has 10 MPs in Parliament, Mr Wong added.
