Category: Social Justice

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Financial Abuse of Elderly Parents

Read the Straits Times report “Breaking the silence on financial abuse of elders”.

I once handled a legal case pro bono with the Legal Aid Bureau. Elderly lady was emotionally abused by her son and made to add his name as a joint tenant of her HDB property. He influenced and misled her to effectively transfer the property to him. (As a joint tenant, when the other joint tenant passes on, one is automatically made the remaining sole owner of the property.) Apparently there was some spiritual voodoo-esque thing going on as well.

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Peter Singer and Effective Altruism: What’s Wrong?

In Peter Singer’s 2009 book The Life You Can Save [1] and 2015 book, The Most Good You Can Do, [2] he makes moral arguments on why people in richer nations should donate money to charities to end poverty in developing nations. He is a proponent of Effective Altruism, the idea that people in rich nations should give their disposable income to charities through evidence-based processes to ensure maximum positive impact.

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Social Justice GE Petition 2015

In light of the Singapore General Election 2015, I co-initiated a petition “Singapore politicians: GE 2015: Pursue Social Justice”. Here’s the link to the petition page.

Synopsis of petition:

The Singapore General Elections (GE) is imminent. Many issues of national importance will be ventilated. The loudest and largest will be heard. Yet, there will be issues, concerns and interests of certain groups of people who often get neglected in the public debates during GE. That’s what this movement seeks to address.

This is a grassroots-initiated petition paper inviting all political parties to respond on concerns which we feel are important but will be insufficiently addressed in the GE debates. If you’re convicted about any of these concerns, sign this petition paper. Why? Because it’s about social justice, about advocating for the marginalised. It’s about making marginal concerns matters of national importance, because they matter to us.