Say NO to National Service

Although I had not written much about this for a long time, it does not mean I am in favour of NS. The numerous deaths at NS itself warrant the whole NS to be suspended until they can guarantee the safety and well being of the children entrusted to them.

Parents should not be compelled to send their kids to NS camps! It should be made on a voluntary basis! And NO, I do not wish for this sort of stories to surface again next year. HERE. Wonder if the DPM knows how much money was spent to raise a child from birth to 18 years of age and that it takes a dirty camp and brainless camp administrator to take one's life away... and if that is not enough, they normally come up with right down lame excuse on why the child dies... I guess drowning in toilet is one that I can never comprehend.... and no amount of money can help the family recoup back the child they lost and the 18 years spent only for the careless government to take his/her life away...

Our DPM talked about Zero Death. But I have yet to see them announce nor implement any steps to ensure Zero Deaths at NS Camps nationwide.

Mr. DPM, until you can prove to Malaysians that NS Camps are totally safe and that your instructors are human enough to recognize that the participants are children and not conscripts, you MUST give the parent the option of whether to send their kids there.

There should be NO compulsion

SAY NO TO N.S

NS - Target Zero Death

In his effort to keep the gravy train of NS running, DPM has come up with an ingenious statement hoping to placate us to continue sending our kids to NS. HERE

"I try to emphasise zero defects for this programme and also fatalities. Although there were one or two incidents, these should not hinder the overall success of the NS programme," he told reporters after a closed-door meeting with the camp commandants today.

How can there be one or two incidents when there are 16 wasteful deaths??

Zero deaths??? I guess, Mr. DPM, you should clearly SPELL OUT the government responsibilities and liabilities should another death occur!

National Service - Sick of it.

With school going children, many of us are indeed troubled by the deaths occuring in National Service camps every year. While we have been bringing up the issue, our DPM seems more hell bent to justify the programme that it should continue. HERE.

What I find depressing is the DPM seems to echo the excuses of the camp administrators in pin pointing the root cause of the deaths as to negligence on health by the attendees while not addressing the issues of accidents arising from it.

"Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the number of deaths was a small percentage compared to the 339,186 trainees who had benefited from the programme up to now.

He also said that 11 of the trainees had died during training and five during their holiday break. Of the 11 deaths, seven were caused by ailments and four were due to accidents, he added."

How could he just brush aside the number of death as small? We have spent almost 20 years to bring our kids up to that age. Imagine the amount of money and time spent nurturing them! Only to die in vain due to some incompetent camp administrator! I guess its easy for him to say so as his own kids are not subjected to such slack attention at the camps.

On top of that, he is trying even harder to "ADD VALUE" to his cronies when he suggested that medical check-ups to be made mandatory! So what now? We have to pay to ensure our kids health before we sent them for NS? More money to be made? How in the world can he equate deaths in our NS camps to Singapore's? Can he ensure that all the camp's personnel's credentials to be put up for scrutiny? Can he allow parents to visit their kids every now and then? Can he ensure that the kids will be sent to the nearest camp where their home is? After all its NS we are talking about not a concentration camp for convicts!

I will now dedicate my blog to fighting for the abolition of NS and will join the desired groups elsewhere to seek justice for the deaths in NS. I can imagine the agony of a parent to see their kids die in vain like drowning in toilet, die of stomach upset etc. When they cannot even ensure basic safety and health standards, I wonder what right have they got to make it mandatory for our kids to go to NS!

A Hoard of Issues

Came back from what was indeed a good break and many shocks too.

Arrived at Langkawi only to find out that Nargisa has hit Myanmar and to a certain extent the weather in Langkawi was affected. Sigh... but I guess that was not all. The issue of rice shortage is definitely high on the list of what went wrong in Malaysia of late.

There were certainly many plots of paddy fields in Langkawi and why was I not surprised that we are short of rice? The fields there are all overgrown with lallang. A sign that it has not been attended to for some time. But also on it you see construction that is on-going. Ahh... the farmers must have hit jackpot and are building their own lavish abode on their land. Much as I would like to believe our PM that we are 70% self sufficient, I really wonder if that is the case. Or was what I heard from Bernas not too long ago about the malady affecting our farmers who are more keen to sell their fertilizers and seedlings for easy money has caused the country to suffer the consequence of rapidly rising prices? Or are the millers hoarding the rice for better price?

Besides that, there is the nagging issue of National Service which claimed another innocent life. That is indeed sad and what makes it worse is that the authority are washing their hands clean off the issue. The bottom line is, IF they cannot ensure safety and well being of the participants, they should just scrape the whole thing altogether. I am sure many parents as I are as concerned to entrust the life of our precious young into hands of the irresponsible.