As I have said in my previous post that our family’s vacation in Singapore was not enough to understand Singapore’s way of life so I took home an essential book titled “The Big Ideas of Lee Kuan Yew” of the Straits Times Press edited by Shashi Jayakumar and Rahul Sagar.
The book has five parts where:
Part 1 is about the “Personal Reminiscences” of SR Nathan, a two-term President
of Singapore and Heng Swee Keat who served as Principal Private Secretary to
Lee Kuan Yew. Both shared their personal unique experiences working with
the Singapore’s great leader;
Part 2 explains about “Law and Politics” and the different views as regards the
“Rule of Law”. It provided explanation on Lee Kuan Yew’s basic approach
to law, order and security, race, and religion as well as international
relations;
In Part 3 it tackles about Mr. Lee’s style of governance, his political will,
about his pragmatic approach that made a big difference for Singapore that
changed it from a third world to first world country. It also explained
how Singapore’s public service was transformed, how its public servants adopted
a culture of excellence;
Part 4 contains Mr. Lee’s ideas on “Society and Economics” where it explained
Singapore’s bilingual and multi-racial concepts. It provided an insight
on how language played an important role in governance and in transmitting
values;
Part 5 is about “Foreign Affairs’ and his big ideas on small state survival.
It explained Mr. Lee’s thoughts and approach on how Singapore became
relevant to the world.
The book not only provided an account of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s way of governance
but also shared the experiences of those people who worked closely with this
great leader. As I read through the pages of this book, I was amazed of
the details I uncovered specifically how Mr. Lee built Singapore the way it is
now. This made me admired more the people who put enormous effort in
building one of the best countries to live in. I cannot help but
highlight Mr. Lee’s characteristics as described by the people who worked with
him. Aside from being a very intelligent man, he is confident and consistent in
whatever he wanted to achieve. He is well known as a tough leader but one
of his outstanding qualities that was revealed in this book is his being a
“deeply thoughtful man,” his caring nature that in my own opinion not only
moved those people close to him but his country as a whole.
So while I was reading this book, I cannot help but compare the qualities of
our presidential aspirants to those qualities of Mr. Lee. I was thinking
if anyone of them has the making of a great leader that will put the
Philippines at par with the best in the world or would we be electing somebody
that will put our country in the shame/worst list for the longest time?
Kishore Mahbubani in the book’s introduction described five of his
qualities as (1)” he is a deeply thoughtful man” (2) he is “a man of action”
(3) “he is pragmatic” (4) he is “guided by some deeply held values” and
(5) he has courage. These five qualities of Mr. Lee were explained
in detail in the book. I wish that all candidates for the coming
Philippine general election will have the time to read this book and get
inspiration and might as well learn and apply Mr. Lee’s big ideas.
I wish to quote Lee Kuan Yew as written in page 96 of the book about people and
leadership “My experience of development in Asia has led me to conclude that
we need good men to have good government. However good the system of
government, bad leaders will bring harm to their people.”
In the same chapter on page 97, it provided a plain example with huge impact on
how he governed his people as he was quoted saying after discovering that light
switches in a government structure did not work “…And I say it does you no
harm whatsoever just to make sure that the thing works. And don’t be too
kind. If you want to be kind to your people then you have got to be firm.
And at times, stern to those who have a duty to perform to see that the duty is
performed.”
Those words reminded me of incidents in my country which could have been
prevented if only the people who are in-charge have the political will to
ensure that things work out the way they must be. All too common are
non-working escalators/elevators and even trains in our own MRT/LRTs, filthy
pathways/walkways/waterways, crime news every day except during Manny
Pacquiao's fight and many other perpetual problems that made me wonder if there
is really someone governing us or are we living to each his own.
The Philippines and its people have so much to learn from Singapore and we have
lots of work to do to correct all the wrong actions and perceptions of our
leaders and would-be leaders. As how the book puts it, “Learning from
Others, Learning from the Best.” And the Philippines need to learn from
the best.
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