Politics: Location, location, location?

The dictum that Singapore has no natural resources sounds shallow when one considers our deep natural harbour and geographic location—beneficial both in terms of trade centrality, from at least 1819 onwards (if not long before), and as a point uniquely insulated from the natural disasters that ravage our neighbours every year. The British and then later the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) both leveraged this for enormous economic gain. As the men in white mimicked the white men’s trading patterns, Singapore’s importance to global supply chains grew. “Transport is the foundation on which our economy is built,” said Jeffrey Siow, acting transport minister, addressing a motion this week on the sector. He noted that it accounts for some 10 percent of GDP and seven percent of jobs held by Singaporeans.

But how long can the joyride last? Will Thailand slice a canal through the Isthmus of Kra? Will the fabled Northern Sea Route from Europe to East Asia via the Arctic ever really materialise? Will much longer-range aircraft render Singapore’s traditional hub-and-spoke aviation model irrelevant? How might geopolitical turbulence, from protectionism and nearshoring to wars, affect Singapore’s long-term viability as a trade centre?

These are some long-standing existential concerns. Though some are beyond our control, Singapore can do more to increase our relevance beyond physical infrastructure alone. “Supply chains are becoming more fragmented and more distributed. If Singapore is merely a place through which flows happen to pass, then one day these flows will simply pass us by,” said Siow, arguing that we need to be seen as a global thought leader in transport. This explains the government’s new investment of S$800m in transport research over five years, doubling its previous expenditure. Two-thirds will go towards autonomy and digital twins for connectivity, with the rest earmarked for sector-specific research in aviation, maritime, and land transport. Siow and Baey Yam Keng, minister of state for transport, offered more granular detail on developments in each.

Responses from the opposition Workers’ Party (WP) MPs offered further proof of its ever-maturing policy chops. Jamus Lim offered, among other things, a useful macro-economic primer on the shifting global order, and the relative importance of goods and services, as well as different partners, to Singapore’s trade. “We must foster more growth in tradable services, which has the added benefit that it is also less subject to the need to undervalue our exchange rate…if we are focused on trade in services, we should keep in mind that we export more to the European Union than to the United States, and more to ASEAN than mainland China.”

Several WP MPs questioned our seeming over-reliance on mega projects such as Tuas Port and Changi Airport Terminal 5. “To hedge our exposure to physical trade volatility, Singapore must pivot from being just a physical gatekeeper to also becoming the sovereign digital architect of global trade,” said Gerald Giam. Among his suggestions was a rebalancing of long-term capital spending to reflect this. Seeking to understand the future through the past, Kenneth Tiong bemoaned the 2016 sale of Neptune Orient Lines. “We treat the airline, SIA, as strategic and rescue it [during Covid], but we treat the sea carrier, NOL, as a commodity and sell it,” he said. Edward Chia, PAP MP, countered that Singapore’s maritime success was premised on functioning as a neutral platform that doesn’t “favour one shipping line over another”.

Creating an integrated gateway for aviation and maritime connectivity in the east, near the Batam-Bintan-Karimun free trade zone, was just one of numerous other suggestions from the 24 MPs who spoke for over six hours. For those of us who’ve grown tired of some recent petty politicking, it was refreshing to hear the evolution of a discussion on an essential, centuries-old issue for our little red dot.

Politics: Alvin Tan, Lawrence Wong, Michael Thng, David Neo, Stephanie Tan, Goh Meng Seng

The PAP as arbiter of truth. The case for one-party dominance. The reality of elite governance. Some classical concepts from the Singapore consensus were this week dusted off and given a contemporary shine by younger politicians, sparking the usual rebuttals. On Saturday, the PAP’s youth wing celebrated its 40th anniversary with a bash for 1,200 people at MBS. It announced a new youth academy that will run training workshops to “serve Singaporeans on the ground”; alongside a new fellowship programme that will give 40 Young PAP (YP) “activists” a S$5,000 seed grant each to run programmes. Alvin Tan, a minister of state and YP chairman, made an impassioned speech that sought to draw a distinction between the “artificial” elements in the world today and what it means to be “authentic”, a word he uttered 16 times. 

“In modern politics, there is a constant temptation to prioritise the narrative over the truth, that as long as the optics look good, the truth can be managed…Authentic leadership means choosing the harder right over the easier wrong. That is the PAP ethos.” For any political party anywhere to suggest that it values truth over narrative is bound to invite criticism, never mind one that has exercised epistemological hegemony since independence. Political commentator Bertha Henson and lawyer Yeoh Lian Chuan were quick to note the PAP’s own pursuit of narrative over truth in terms of Singapore’s early history; while Jom recently mentioned the PAP’s ignorance of its own racist words and policies as it demonises others and crafts its own anti-racist narrative. The PAP has, at best, a rather complicated relationship with the truth.

In his speech, Lawrence Wong, prime minister, alluded to the dangers of feisty politicking. “The real competition is between Singapore and the rest of the world...” The WP’s Michael Thng responded online: “This isn’t how competitiveness is built. National sports teams do not get sharper by cancelling their domestic leagues to save energy for international tournaments…PM Wong’s framing gets the causality backwards. It is precisely because Singapore is the underdog externally that we need real contestation internally.” Wong did call for internal party diversity, saying that the PAP wants “people with different experiences, perspectives and ideas”. In other words political pluralism in Singapore, not unlike in China and other one-party states, is best realised within the confines of a single, hierarchical, Leninist structure.

In Parliament, during the debate over dialects sparked by “Dear You”, a Teochew-language film, David Neo, acting minister for culture, community and youth, admitted that he hadn’t watched the film: “Ministers have no time to watch movies.” He clearly meant it as a joke, though it touched a few raw nerves. Senior politicians in Singapore have a tradition of reminding us how hard they work, perhaps to justify their obscene salaries. But the refrain has grown tired, if not horribly unsympathetic, as workers here increasingly struggle to put food on the table, and sometimes die from overwork. For a culture minister to not watch the movie in question is bad enough, but to poo-pooh the arts in general—as seemingly less worthy than other intelligentsia pursuits —reveals much about elite mindsets. 

“Minister in charge of culture don’t watch movie, minister of transport don’t take MRT, minister in charge of fertility no baby,” went one joke online. Like management consultants, Singapore’s scholarly elites have long prided themselves on their ability to parachute themselves into any area and soon after dish out worldly wisdoms, to hell with lived experience. Perhaps what Wong should promote is not just greater diversity among new recruits, but a culture in which his current charges, wages notwithstanding, can live more ordinary lives.

Finally, Stephanie Tan, the articulate young politician from the Progress Singapore Party, resigned, citing “differences in opinion in the direction of the party”; while Goh Meng Seng and Derrick Sim have stepped down from their leadership positions at the People’s Power Party, known best for its bigotry and political opportunism. Tan will be missed.

Society: Who will heal the healers?

They may trace the roots of their practice back 200 years, when a Swede founded the Royal Institute of Gymnastics; dabblers in antiquity may even point to the Greeks who loved their massages and their hydrotherapy. But the truth is that until a few years ago, you couldn’t spot a physiotherapist with binoculars; now, just try stretching in the park without one telling you to hinge from the hip rather than fold your back. Licensed physios here have doubled in the last decade, driven by an ageing population needing more knee and hip replacements, stroke rehabilitation, and cardiovascular disease management. At play too is the rising number of people playing to keep those infirmities at bay. HYROX, pickleball, and padel may keep your organ systems younger for longer but the scaffolding holding them together takes a battering if form or conditioning is poor (yes, with pickle too). A ligament here, a tendon there, a cartilage elsewhere, and off to the physio you go.

One analysis projects that Singapore’s physiotherapy market will balloon from US$64m (S$82.8m) in 2022 to US$101m (S$130.6m) by 2030. Reasonably, one might conclude that more physios are moving from public institutions to private practice to get a larger slice of an expanding pie. Indeed, The Straits Times (ST), which first reported on the trend, framed it as “private sector lure v public sector needs”. A physio session at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) starts at S$31 (for foreigners, cheaper for citizens and residents); most private setups charge upwards of S$150, with some exceeding S$200. Better pay is certainly a reason, and possibly why the government recently hiked salaries of Allied Health Professionals (AHPs), including physios.

But it’s not the whole story. “I genuinely believe the vast majority of clinicians don't want to leave,” wrote one Redditor claiming to have worked in the local healthcare system. “They leave after years of small frustrations accumulating like less competitive pay, heavier workloads, burnout, feeling underappreciated and a growing sense that the system is asking more while giving back way less.”

A 2025 study by two local universities bears this out. The authors surveyed 78 physios working in public healthcare institutions (admittedly a small number)—92 percent identified high workload as their top stressor, ahead of low pay. Half said they intended to leave in the next two years. Other studies have similarly found that AHPs report the highest levels of stress among Singapore’s healthcare professionals. This suggests they’re among the most overwhelmed workers in one of the country’s most stressful systems.

Some of this has to do with supply lagging demand. The number of physios may have doubled but Singapore still trails many developed nations. EU countries have, on average, three times as many physiotherapists per 10,000 people as Singapore, even if one counts only citizens and residents and assumes all licensed therapists here are practicing. While those in private settings can calibrate their workloads, their public counterparts are bound by institutional working hours and KPIs. The decision by the Ministry of Health (MOH) to expand enrolment in the only professional physiotherapy degree programme offered here—at the Singapore Institute of Technology—may help. But broader concerns, about working culture, career progression, and yes, pay, remain. If they stay unaddressed, and the flow towards private practice is not stanched, Singaporeans unable to afford private fees will be priced out of what is increasingly becoming an essential service. To its credit, MOH has also pledged to better retain talent. Vital, because, as the online commentator said, we can’t “recruit our way out of a retention problem.”

Society: ‘In a surveillance state, we’re all cam girls’

“Hi, I’m Kylie Jenner. The new voice of Meta AI”, says the American media personality, Gen Z’s IT girl, and founder of Kylie Cosmetics. Jenner has launched “Starfire Kylie Edition”, a collaboration with Meta Glasses—smart glasses with an AI voice assistant that let you listen to music, film, and take photos hands-free. The glasses are undeniably chic, sleek oval frames that come in two colours—“classic black” and “dark tortoise” with a choice of clear to grey transition lenses (you can get them prescribed too). Before Meta recruited Jenner, Ray-Ban had JENNIE, a South Korean artist from the K-pop girl group BLACKPINK, pose with its Meta Wayfarer collection. This fall, Google and Samsung will launch Intelligent Eyewear, a tie-up with the Korean luxury eyewear brand Gentle Monster, that aims to “merge fashion and technology in a way that feels bold, beautiful and human”. 

Big tech is leaning into research that says devices rarely go mainstream until women adopt them. But these influencer campaigns have made many queasy. Smart glasses are notorious for their “creep filming”, allowing for surreptitious filming of people in the proximity. While the glasses have an LED light to indicate when they’re “on”, many have found ways to tint or “hack” the lights off. (Meta has pushed an update to disable the hack and removed thousands of ads for tampering services). Some “manfluencers” have used the tech to create “pick-up” content—the act of chatting up random women. Many of these women did not realise they were being filmed. Meanwhile, two Harvard students combined the tech with a face detection software to make a facial recognition tool that enables users to identify a person’s name, age, and even previous jobs on the fly. A WIRED report also uncovered an unreleased face-recognition system embedded in Meta’s smart glasses platform. The code lets you identify people using biometric data stored in your phone. (Meta deleted the code after the report was published). 

Besides non-consensual filming, there are serious concerns about how the captured content is being used. An investigation found that contractors in Kenya had access to private captures by users who opted into sharing their data for Meta’s AI training purposes. Instead of AI servers, contracted annotators were manually labelling “footage of people in bathrooms, undressing, and watching porn, and in at least one documented case, a pair of glasses left on a bedside table captured a partner who had never consented to being recorded” to teach the AI to interpret images. A federal lawsuit quickly followed, but the glasses remain on the market. And that’s fine, because Meta has assured us: “The glasses were ‘designed for privacy, controlled by you.’” 

But consumers are no longer as naive. An Instagram video edit circulating online features cuts of Jenner in an interview reflecting on the trauma of dealing with paparazzis juxtaposed with her excitement to launch the glasses; then cuts to “pick-up” content victim testimonies with tutorial snippets on how to turn the recording light off. While the feminisation of smart glasses shows how technology, fashion, and pop culture can intersect, it comes at a time where people are primed to scrutinise underlying motives. Sarah Saska, a sociotechnologist, told Vogue, “People, namely women, saw it [Jenner’s Meta collaboration] for what it was: an attempt to reshape the product’s cultural meaning.”

Arts: The stadium and the bedroom

A young woman, all rumpled hair and runny eyeliner, is stumbling through the shadowy corridors of a block of flats to menacing electric guitar riffs. Part glitchy film noir, part B-grade cult horror flick, we’ve entered an alt version of Singapore as imagined by one of its nascent alt-prog rock bands, Taledrops. “Bad Day, Darling?” is the first music video by the all-female group. It’s an earnest polemic about impossible social media standards and the subsequent self-loathing these produce, played to campy heights by all five band members, who hold up phone filters to their faces and scream into bathroom mirrors. They’re led by cherubic vocalist Pearly Tan, who howls the song’s saddest lyrics (“What do I see? Just a hideous monster that’s me”) against bassist Hong Jingmin’s throbbing basslines and keyboardist Ang Qian Shan’s sweeping arpeggios. The group is rounded out by guitarist Zijun Kan, who also composed the music, and drummer Kiara Tan, keeping everyone on a taut beat. Taledrops has long set messy feelings to tight orchestration. The 20-somethings met in secondary school, then got their break when they scored a slot in the 2023 Baybeats Budding Band programme, where they got to showboat at the popular alt-music festival on the Esplanade waterfront. They launched their debut EP last year. “Visions of a Dying Dream” is packed with intricate arrangements and dramatic sentiments, with Tan belting about everything from our callous city-state (“It’s a long rat race / A rhapsody of reality / Spoken over sheep / Herded senselessly”) to crumbling relationships (“I could see the motive / Beneath the piles of your lies”). The quintet has been adamant about “ensuring our artistry speaks for itself, transcending any gender-based labels” in a still male dominated genre here. 

If Taledrops’ conceptual sound is made to fill stadiums, then Racoonhead’s confessional songs are made for your unmade bedroom, your ex’s ripped up love letters in the trash and your crusty plates and crushed beer cans in the sink. The three-piece emo punk band, founded by Melbourne-based Singaporean Adam Lee, has just dropped their first album. Its anthemic title elevates the everyday: “Long Live Our Apartment Complex”. The band’s emotional squall feels both reckless and contained—like they’re trying not to bust a temperamental amp (or the decibel meter) in their parents’ suburban garage. The album embraces emotional chaos, careening between trilling guitars, splashy cymbals and breathy acoustic heartwringers. Between ragged vocals and cracked hearts, the group splices in some choice voiceovers; we hear actress Julie Delpy exclaim “we had sex twice, you idiot!”, sampled from the walk-and-talk romantic drama “Before Sunset”. Like the film, every song is sodden with romantic tensions and riddled with self doubt. “You think I’m a pest / I think you’re the best,” Lee sings on “Pest”, impervious to emotional obliteration, not unlike the unkillable roach. “Squish me in a way that feels like only you can.” It’s an album for when you want to wallow a little in the sludge of your heartbreak—before you finally cave, wash the dishes, take out the trash, and leave your apartment.

Abhishek Mehrotra, Sakinah Safiee, Corrie Tan, and Sudhir Vadaketh wrote this week’s issue.

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