The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro
The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro |
- Singaporeans prefer to retire at 55
- Parents’ expectations of children higher now
- The rusted old post in Ayungin Shoal
| Singaporeans prefer to retire at 55 Posted: 05 Apr 2014 09:00 AM PDT FOUR out of 10 Singaporeans would choose to retire at the age of 55, a survey revealed. However, two in three are realistic, and know that they will have to work until at least 60, international recruitment firm Randstad found. The desire to retire early could worsen the labour crunch, Randstad's country director for Singapore Michael Smith warned. "Singapore is already facing a talent crisis, with many organisations finding it difficult to meet the demand for skills," he said. "If a situation arises where a large group of the talent pool are unwilling to work to the retirement age, this will make the talent shortage challenge even more acute for organisations here." Randstad said that firms can take steps to coax their staff to work longer. Incentives could include offering older workers a more relaxed schedule, cutting the number of work hours and creating a friendlier work place. The official retirement age in Singapore is 62, although bosses must offer healthy workers, who have performed satisfactorily, re-employment from ages 62 to 65 – or give them a one-off payment. The Government is also looking at extending the re-employment age to 67, and more details are expected later this year. More than 6,500 workers in Singapore aged 18 to 65 took part in the Randstad online poll between November and December last year. The survey did not go into the workers' financial details, such as how they expect to support themselves in their retirement years. But it found that three in five workers rank salary and benefits as most important when choosing a job. The same proportion of workers also said they expect their bosses to be reliable, honest and sincere when handling staff. Erman Tan, president of the Singapore Human Resources Institute, said: "It is part of the progress of society, where workers want to slow down as they grow older. But these workers can still be productive, so the onus is on bosses to try to retain them." Former zookeeper Francis Lim, 59, retired four years ago, but said that the move was not without its trade-offs. "I rely mostly on my savings and live frugally," he said, adding: "(But I get to) enjoy a slow pace of life and can find time for spiritual development." — The Straits Times / Asia News Network |
| Parents’ expectations of children higher now Posted: 05 Apr 2014 09:00 AM PDT PARENTS' aspirations for their children to achieve have become more intense and that has led to couples thinking twice before having kids, said Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing. "Expectations have clearly changed. In the past, it was first have the kid and then figure out how to bring up the kid. Now it's the other way around," said Chan, who was speaking at at a family empowerment lecture at the Singapore Expo organised by Jamiyah Singapore. Speaking to 3,000 parents at the event, Chan recounted how an elderly couple he had met were proud of their six children, who are graduates and own their own homes now. Their children had shared food and beds while growing up in a one-room flat. But when asked if the couple had any grandchildren, they sternly told Chan that their children were concerned about the cost of having kids, even though they are better off today. Chan also pointed out other challenges Singapore families face today. As a small country, he said that Singapore's cultural values will be affected by new value systems across the globe. Family sizes are also getting smaller over the years. To help keep families intact, Jamiyah's president Mohd Hasbi Abu Bakar said its recently renovated Jamiyah Counselling Centre is one avenue in which the organisation is reaching out to couples with relationship issues. One in two of the 120 marital counselling cases handled by the centre monthly has resulted in a couple reconciling. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network |
| The rusted old post in Ayungin Shoal Posted: 05 Apr 2014 09:00 AM PDT It must be one of the loneliest, and certainly one of the strangest, military outposts in the world: The BRP Sierra Madre is a decrepit, World War II-era ship purposely beached in Ayungin Shoal in 1999 to serve as improvised detachment for a small Philippine contingent. The scene is out of a dystopian future: a rusting shell of a ship, vulnerable to the elements, empty save for eight or nine soldiers on assignment. But this is very much the present. Every few months or so, the military replaces the soldiers stationed in Ayungin, as well as in other Philippine outposts in the Spratlys: Lawak, Likas, Parola, Patag, Rizal Reef. But it is Ayungin that stands out, like an elaborate set from a Hollywood movie, because it is truly out of the ordinary. Photos taken by Inquirer photographer Grig Montegrande, who was among the 18 journalists who joined the successful supply run over last weekend, show a ship in an advanced stage of decay. The trash and ancient equipment rising in the main hold compete with the rust accumulating everywhere. It seems only a matter of time before the sea claims the ship itself. But for the soldiers on assignment, this is home away from home, at least for a few months. It is a dangerous mission, because Ayungin Shoal is one of the flashpoints in the increasingly acrimonious maritime dispute between the Philippines and China. Large Chinese Coast Guard ships patrol the waters around the shoal; Chinese and American military aircraft monitor the skies above it; not least, Mischief or Panganiban Reef, a part of the Philippines' Kalayaan Island Group which the Chinese occupied in 1999, is only several kilometers to the west. But the Sierra Madre is also a difficult assignment because it is so isolated. Ayungin Shoal is about 105 nautical miles away from Palawan, the nearest Philippine province. There is no cellphone signal. There is no Internet connection. There is only erratic TV reception. It takes a day and a half for a boat from Palawan to reach it; these days, Chinese patrols make the journey even longer, or even at times impossible. And once on the Sierra Madre, the soldiers also have to bear the murderous tedium of having almost nothing to do for hours on end. What does it take to survive in such a hardship post? "You have to be strong-willed," First Lt Mike Pelotera, the commander of the platoon that had served in Ayungin for five months and was replaced last Saturday, told the Inquirer. "This is our territory. That's why we have to be prepared to stay here for a long period, even if it takes years." His answer finds an echo in something Marine Technical Sgt. Jerry Fuentes, part of the team that replaced Pelotera's platoon, said: "It makes us even tougher. In the first place, this is ours. Why should we leave?" These frontline soldiers studiously avoided using words like "sovereignty" or kasarinlan—which may be too big, too heavy, even too pretentious, especially when contrasted with the pitiful conditions one finds in the Philippine outposts. But others deployed to Ayungin Shoal or other detachments in the Spratlys strike variations on the same theme, say almost the same thing. For instance, Second Lt Robinson Retoriano, the detachment commander of Lawak, told the New York Times last year: "A lot of Filipino people might not know why we're fighting for these islands. But once you see it, and you've stepped on it, you understand. It's ours." It's ours, despite the surrounding isolation. There are two satellite phones on the Sierra Madre, or at least there were when the Times team spent a week on the ship last year. "Like the others, (Sgt Roy Yanto) is able to talk to his family once a week or so, when they call in to one of the two satellite phones that the men take care to keep dry and charged. "'It's enough for me,' he said of the five or 10 minutes he gets on the phone with his family. 'What's important is that I heard their voice.'" We hope those sat phones are still in working order. One of the Marines extracted from Ayungin Shoal last Saturday, Private First Class Ryan Esteban, said his wife-to-be was due to give birth to their first child in May. "I was finally able to speak to her at dawn yesterday, as soon as our ship got near the mainland and we got a signal on our cellular phones." |
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