People Feedback Power vs Government Executive Power

This appeared on my facebook wall minutes ago.

Public Transport: Feedback from Singaporeans | The Online Citizen

theonlinecitizen.com

Kirsten Han / Yesterday, The Online Citizen put out a call on our Facebook page asking people to send in photographs and accounts of their experience of

It just dawn on me, that the inchoate power of the people are, going forward, forming up more and more into laser beams targeted at policy makers.

I can't resist reproducing one of the photos here. TOC has invited readers to send in their pictures of congestion in our public transport system.

I am not sure how many will contribute pictures, and with smart phones it is easy to snap and upload photos. If the response prove to be tepid, it is only a matter of time enthusiasm will appear as long at TOC and others are patient. You can't hurry such things. Let the people self organize. This is happening all over the world courtesy of the Internet. Go and pick up some books on Chaos and Complexity if you want to understand such phenomena better.

It used to be you give the government a mandate to run the country for five years and come back for another GE to be renewed or rejected. I think we are moving from "batch to continuous" process if I may borrow from my training as a Chemical Engineer. To the government this is rule by public opinion, which is anathema to them. To us, it is upward evolution or growing up. I don't know how this is going to play out. Change is time compressed (Oh dear, now thinking like a Physicist). Come 2016, it would be a completely different landscape.

It is also too late for the government to educate the people especially if it is about tough policies. They have lost so much credibility with us. Just pick the latest. Compare how well Gerald Giam had argued his case against Lui Tuck Yew. The Transport Minister has so far responded with stony silence and try to focus on quality of service instead. I wonder if the people with their growing feedback power will try to help him refocus better. Both the price of tickets and service quality are equally important. The minister is only fighting fires but Gerald Giam has elevated the discussion to the philosophy of public transport and its long term sustainability. Now if the minister is not able to engage the NCMP as an intellectual equal, perhaps he ought to call his boss the PM to help him.

If REACH cannot do a better job, they might as well retire it.