No to dirty election

MALAYSIA first and now Cambodia follow the same path in election fraud. In the ASEAN region, all nations has been transformed to a republic in term of words and I think no nation is fully democratic to date. Thailand and Philippine has fair system to accept while others has worse facts whenever it come to election to select their next government. Why ruling party leaders are not respecting people's will? Why they are shameless to win by dirty ways? It is not totally graceful to continue holding power in hand like that. But still such dirty minded leaders are surviving, at least in the region. For them, no matter western nations do not recognize their election result so long as China is backing them. It is obvious, communist China will always has a hand to support such leaders in the region. They know such nation with communist minded leader are easier for them to do business that can generate better return in quick manner. Let it be.

Our GE2015 is around the corner and I don't want to see the same trend as Malaysian and Cambodian people has witnessed with their own election. It is however most likely to see dirty methods to ensure ruling party keep control the power. People are desperate to see new leader on ASSK so that the country move forward and ease people's plight. The shameless people will surface just before election again and promise to people with their boneless tongues. It is time for our people to be wise enough and understand who is capable of carrying our country move forward. I'm hopeful that I will be able to vote this upcoming election for very first time in life as an eligible voter.

Why China got upper hand in Myanmar?

NO matter you like or dislike, China owned natural gas pipe line has been lunched yesterday in Myanmar. Though a lot of criticism through construction of pipeline, China has built its ambitious project to the end and launched officially in front of Myanmar's VP-2. The pipeline development has paved the way in the expense of our forests. Its quality has been casted under doubt by watchdog. There were a lot speculation that the gas pipeline was leaking when it was tested for commission. Also some victims along pipeline yet to receive their compensation though pipeline opened. 

Overall, China is getting another license to absorb Myanmar's latest natural resource with probably under market price. It is China who take advantage from the project and Myanmar's people are put under risk of exploration anytime while it is operating. We all know that China's product are sub-standard and dangerous. The problem is our government still apparent happy with the activities of Chinese firms on our home soil. China is doing more and more projects on Myanmar's soil as if it is their own territory and Myanmar citizen's unhappiness against Chinese become bigger by time.

The fact said natural pipeline would be joined by another ambitious oil pipeline and cross nation railway line. As some activists highlighted before, I am sadden to learn our country's map is effectively divided by Chinese own projects. I just don't understand the army's slogan that nobody is more loyal than army/soldiers. It look like my country is fond of planting signboards across the nation and do not care to enforce about it. I guess NLD won coming election in 2015 and ASSK become next president. Otherwise Myanmar's future is in the brink of Chinese influence. May God this time favors the will of our people.

BOT Headache

NOWADAYS, our civilian government trying to give all public assets to private firms to the name of BOT which is build, operate and transfer. Some of them were sold through public tender process. The most visible projects under BOT scheme are public roads. During my recent visit, we went to my wife's village to pay homage to my in-laws who are still alive. It is not easy place to go because the village located in a mountain region. It took us the whole day by own car. I noticed that we need to pay variety of tax through journey. It includes road tax, bridge tax, wheel tax, etc. Though we keep paying taxes, the road are not so good in condition. Driver told me that all roads has been controlled by companies who collect taxes from road users. They even do not spare to a motorcyclists.

Our people enjoyed free road in old system before and now suffer from paying money for travelling all the way. Is it fruit of transforming democracy? Why the government has handed over to private firms? What for paying tax to government if almost everything have to be paid by public? It is so easy to transfer to company under BOT. But it is part of government's responsibilities to consider public's interests. If they are adapting this method all area, then where gone our tax money as well as natural resource selling money. I don't want to think so much. I just want to wonder because our people are poor and cannot get assistance from authorities. They deserve their help because the ruling MPs were elected by their votes. After getting a seat in government office, forgot about all promises during election campaign is not something right. People will backlash on upcoming GE if the ruling party do not care enough of our people's plight. I see giving BOT easily is quite cheap for officials who do not want to manage at their disposal. At the end of the day, the officials keep fat commission and public suffer from the mismanagement. 

Please use public money wisely.

Melted Dream?

THERE were other reason for home returning this month other than joining our daughter's 3 years B'day celebration. It was to find an opportunity on setting up a contractor with local partner at Yangon. It is part of our dream to return homeland and do private business for the sake of family reason. My wife is so serious to return home as she wants to teach a lot to her curious girl who has turned 3 years mark now. We have thought of to discuss on term and conditions of setting up a firm with local partners. In realistic, it is easier said than done. Our partner has been on the chase for initiative and asking us to return for launching a site.

Upon inquiry, he tried to answer what he has learned from local industrial through asking. One of the reasons that can block our way is that all contractor has to put 50million Kyats as a deposit to YCDC which is local municipal authority. It is not a big amount for local big firms. But it is a big blow for a small firm with no background like us. Another problem I learnt from him is that dealing with land owners who demand for a better offer but sometime cannot guarantee for their legal right on ownership. As such, we got to approach agent who demand for 1 million Ks for their service. There were other things we discussed on potential ways and we guess to start with one good plot in coming winter season. Though there would be unseen difficulties, we hope that we could find a way to capture for our return home with permanent basis. My wife and I still dreaming and dreaming for the sake of our daughter. May God favor us this time by finding the best possible way for our plan. We're ready to scarify our lives for new chapter of our life now.

Tear for Joy

EARLY this month, we went back our country to participate our daughter's 3 years old B'day celebration. Unlike previous 2 years, this year celebration was held on her preschool hall together with her classmates. It is worth for our money to the service of preschool. The school management takes all responsibilities for B'day program including B'day cake order. As a parent, we only need to decide what kind of present we would like to give to our daughter's friends on celebration day. It was held 2 days advanced on Friday as actual birthday fall on Sunday which is closed. Other than this minor obstacle, so far all the program went well as per plan.

Our daughter, as usual, goes class in the morning and we joined her afternoon time to participate her big day celebration. As a small hometown preschool class, my wife and I didn't expect so much for the celebration. We realized that we were wrong only when we arrived there to open celebration together with our daughter. Our daughter and her senior teachers meet us at the reception and straight away start celebration as soon as we arrive. It was surprise for us to see decoration for B'day celebration. Ballooning all round and music are live by a keyboard player on stage. B'day cake is readily put there and our daughter and her some classmates were placed around the table right in front of stage.

Several program announced by a teacher and all went well. Music made our mode think of special moment as well as feel VIP. Photos were taken for preschool records and I was also busy with clicking my camera. My wife and I were fully satisfied with the celebration and felt our daughter is lucky to have such big celebration at her age. At some time halfway, I almost cry by circumstance and hope those tears come out of my joy from the deepest heart. We are hopeful that our daughter will understand us one day for failing to nurturing her in person due to oversea jobs. Wish her able to live together with parent as soon as possible for this year birthday wish.

Who scared of tainted milk?

CHINESE entrepreneurs have found safe alternative source for people who have scared Chinese made tainted milk powder. One news report said that some agencies in China's biggest cities are offering a service for breastfed. It is understandable if it is only meant for infants whose parent are worrisome on getting safe milk powder for their child. But business is business. The target clients include not only babies but adults. The latest finding make viral among Chinese netizen. Some welcomed news while other criticize. The service come costly, charging S$3,300 per month in average. It could be up if the servicing woman is attractive and young. Traditionally, Chinese belief that breast milk is the best for those who are struggling with their digestion system. Shame? The agencies will provide in cup by extracting breast milk by mean of external device. I am not sure if such business is legal in China or not. But it seem a good business that has attractive return in profit. Hopefully, such fever will not infect to our home land.

In China, everything is possible...lol..

Party Time

TIME seem fly faster than we thought. Our marriage looks not so long ago but our daughter is going to celebrate her 3 year old birthday in mid July. In previous two years celebration, I only attended as a Dad. This year, my wife will join celebration and our daughter's birthday would be even more special. There is another reason to make her feel memorable this time. It is because she'll have fellow classmates to participate her special day this year. As she recently begun local preschool, her birthday will be celebrating at her school together with classmates. She seem happier than previous time and asking me to buy lists of desire.

Balloons, Chocolates, Cakes, Fruits are among her favorite things to order us. My wife and I are busy buying some presents for her as well as relatives. We are exciting to celebrate together this year as a full member of family. We want to give her a perfect day so that she may able to feel that parent always by her side whenever she needs us. As she close to 3, she can speak now well and able to share things she encountered on daily life. It is pretty good to spend family time with interactive way. It won't be last enough to keep us together due to limited leave. We however will make the days memorable while living together and hope she'll enjoy too with parent at the time of party.

Wish you able to live together with your parent asap.

Check & Balance

CHECK & Balance is a famous word among politician of countries which are practicing democracy. As a young democracy country, our constitution made of 3 major pillars called, parliament, executive and judicial. We are seeing how independently each of them are working and it say how much we have succeeded by our new adapted strategy. Some still widely say that executive is influencing the way our judicial work that affect the rule of law within country. Our people have been distrust on our judicial system due to widely corruption and it seem won't restore people's confident in short period time.

Recent incident that parliament tried to block telecommunication tender result by citing pending law voice louder among local media and critics. Is it sign of disconnect between executive and parliament on the cooperation ground? Parliament speaker defended its stance that it is normal to be different between executive and parliament in democratic countries. Our people got less exposure with democratic practice among their daily life. Whoever initiate the move, each sector should put first priority for our people interests because it is their sworn obligation to protect people. I think seeing them argue on a matter is beauty of democracy. Because there is no such thing in a communist nation/ military regime states where one man decision enough to make everything happen on lives. The unofficial fourth pillar to encourage check & balance is our private media who play an important role in finding any wrongdoing among higher ranking officials as well as cronies capitalism. Though transparency is yet to reach optimum, our people today have been enjoying some degree of freedom to express their feeling. It is, without doubt, already fruit of changing system now in Myanmar. It is time for Myanmar to see more conflicts of interests as it open up.

Parental love should be priceless

CHINA has enacted its newest law to ensure children are looking after their parent when they turn silver age. Following the increase case of complaint by senior to court, the government step into the case. It said, the complaint were not because of money, it is demand for emotional support. It show how much old Chinese parent are facing loneliness by staying at government aided senior citizen houses. The growing demand of jobs might have been a reason of why working adult children failed to see their parent frequently. One argued that it is very costly to return hometown and see their parent in regular basis for those who have migrated to seek greener pasture. As a big continent like China, it is not easy to travel across the country. Plus fighting at work to maintain job is anther issue that make them difficult to get leaves. As such, the youths are doubt at newly formed law if it is workable or not.

The first case has been sentenced against children who failed her mother to give enough care. The verdict said the daughter is needed to visit her mother once every couple months. Otherwise she face hefty fines and prison sentence. Let it be. The move has sense and non-sense attached. Good for parent but bad for working adult I think. However, an Asian culture shouldn't be like that. Our culture encouraged our people to take care their old parent as an obligation. This culture doesn't need written law to do so. Our country might have seen such case. It may not be because of lacking kindness. It is because of hard earning and difficult lives struggling themselves on their own wages. That make children almost impossible to look after extra person unless they are living together with parent. If economic good and people find better earning through works, such problem might have been settled at the same time. Hopefully, such law will never come to our home land as a majority Buddhist nation.

No duplicate please

FINALLY Egypt president Mursi is toppled by its own army. Unfortunately he is first ever democratically elected leader and only last for 1 year in power. The world's media closely followed Egypt's huge public street protests for a week that claimed 50 lives approximately. It is not a good sign for democracy community because other young democratic countries could misinterpret the Egypt lesson. I am worried that our hardliner ministers would take advantage from this failure by taking example to highlight when argument arisen between hard and soft liners. They are known expert in taking some sample from world events whenever they are supposed to explain to the MP or public. I guess that Egypt will return to the road of democracy by setting up general election without delay. Otherwise Egyptian are on the risk of being under military rule. With the help of western powers push, I believe that Egyptians' will of liberation will meet within a short period time. Hopefully this scenario won't happen to our country and will not follow the same path Egypt has seen so far nowadays by current serial violation.

No one size fits all

WE were happy to learn the announcement of telecommunication tender winner last week. We are happy to see world class foreign operators won nationwide telecommunication service tender first ever time on our land. We believe that this tender process had relatively transparency and accountability to the given condition by mean of Myanmar's standard. As expected, the result was announced on June 27 by tender committee. However on eve day of result, our parliament see an important question by a MP proposing to hold the result until telecommunication law is unveiled. Strangely, all MP agreed with proposal and people were disappointed, at least for a day. We all are excited with the result and expect further delay by the intervention of parliament.

We, people, expect foreign firm to win the tender and they bring in world class service. Nowadays our people are struggling with the super slow government owned telecommunication service though it is expensive to utilize. Hence, we desperately wanted to get foreign operator to overhaul our ruined IT sector. We distrust in government service with Chinese technology. Seeing western operators win tender hence were added pleasure for us. The winners are Norway's Telenor and Quarter's Ooredoo. Of course, some voiced out their displeasure with the selection of Muslim owned Ooredoo operator to the given condition. People were amazed by the result that oversee technology giant from Japan and France to choose Qtel. Nevertheless, there would always be critics on whatever government do because no one size fits all. I am pretty sure that new foreign operators will bring latest technology to our land so that our people could enjoy best service at affordable price. 

May our people able to appreciate with what they have.

Beware of tainted milk powder

RECENTLY, I read a Chinese news with interest. It said, Chinese public need to go nearby clinic to buy infant milk powder rather than conventional shopping at supermarkets. The Chinese authority's latest effort to correct errant diary product manufacturing companies. By this latest law, Chinese people will be given milk powder as a prescription of other drugs. It is something strange and new strategy to eradicate tainted milk powder on the shelf of market. Is it easy to comply in real world? The question hit me after reading. China is world leading diary product manufacturing country. There will be huge stock pile of diary product on shelf and warehouse. Unless they are systematically destroyed by Chinese authority, I think the businessmen will not surrender their assets easily drained away. Then, vulnerable poorer neighbor countries are put at the severe risk of getting Chinese made milk powder through illegal border trade. I don't think we have a relevant authority that can prevent illegal/unsafe food products coming in from Chinese borders. As such, our people's health risk are compromising against Chinese made cheap milk powder. May our children free from Chinese made tainted milk powder by the help of authority.

Variable Human Right?

WHEN some Rohingya Muslims are setting fire on our backyard, international human right organization and UN would urged our government to refrain from doing harsh things against minorities. I am not pro-government or pro-army guy. But I feel it is not a little bit fair for our nation to be overwhelmed by external factors. Our law enforcement authority has every right to restore public order if it goes wild regardless of reason. In current sectarian crisis, it is far more about immigration problem than locals. It is about illegal settlers who has violated the law by corrupting officials in most cases. 

Myanmar is a peaceful nation with kind people who do not afraid of welcoming visitors. In fact, Bangladeshi are not alone who creating our immigration problems. There are others from neighboring big countries from China and India. The different is their background that make them different by religion. Other illegal settlers from China and India only do business and tried to survive their settlement in new places. However, it is different mindset for Muslim illegals who came from western border. They are always initiators who set problems. They are always on the wrong end whenever incident happened against them. They are not complying local laws. Instead, they are trying to bully the locals who later find it hard to bear and turn violence. In reality, our locals are not getting enough protect from the government and law. They are supposed to protect themselves in order to stay alive. As such, it is not fair to blame them alone for some form of violence. They got rights to protect their interests which could be religion, race and business ground.

I read news of China problem with handling Muslim minority in their remote far north western state. The Beijing accused the violence due to extremists who got assistance from Syria opposition rebel group. In recent few days, the dead toll has reached 36 and still counting. But I never heard UN and Human Right group pushing China not to use military force on protesters. Last month, our citizens who are working in Malaysia faced tremendous dangerous and being killed up to 7 and several wounded by apparent Rohingya Muslim criminals. But Malaysia police force yet to find out offender after one month now. Again where is human right? Does it mean Myanmar Buddhists are not human? Do their lives are not important as Muslim? Where gone IOC to say their fellow religion followers to respect human right? Finally I understand that human right is a thing of choice and flexible for enforcers. It can be applied on different country which is not something right indeed.

Nationalism Headache

NATIONALISM has never been serious than today in Myanmar since it has been independence in 1948. During colonial era, nationalism was deemed as a sign of united front by people from all walks of life. It however is much different with today nationalism. It apparently started one year ago in western Rakhine state which is close to Bangladesh border. A rape murder triggered to sectarian violence that left few thousands homeless and hundred death. Understandably most of victims are estimated stateless Rohingya Muslim because the most serious violence happened on their land. Since then, the religion violence has been escalated and the government failed to response swiftly. To date, the police and court yet to brought perpetrators to justices which show the degree of rule of law within country.

Unfortunately, it is not end within itself and spread to other region in the following months. It delayed the government's democratization process effectively and earned international criticism. Most recently the government spokesman told media the the accusation of government and military behind recent and on-going sectarian violation was groundless. To make the matter worse, some monks participated in the campaign popularly known '969' to alert our people to discourage buying at Muslim own business. It is true there have been some form of rumors through internet media. Our people have apparently been divided to two group by those speculation. As people are less educated, some slip into those false news to generate either political gain or religious or at least legal right of citizenship by illegal Bengali. I believe, most of such speculation came from exiles who always want to see our nation shake. 

Amid shaky situation, Time magazine's this month cover story make our situation worst. It prompt the government issue a letter of objection against the article which said "the face of terror buddhist' by a leading campaign monk, U Wirathu. Our people feel unfair to be criticized as a violence religion rather than world's most peaceful religion. At the same time, some monks trying to draft a law to protect our women marrying Muslim men and being altered. Some support the move while another see them as a religion extremists. I am seeing a lot argument on social media website these days and sick and tired of it. The government seem not step in to stop the movement. There are ton of things to be done in country and our government and people keep busy with such nationalism movement. We are now in critical junction and our leaders must have enough intelligent to overcome the current crisis. Otherwise we are again in danger risking the nation to reverse. I would like to ask our people, religion leaders and government not to panic on baseless rumors and solve the problems with logic and rule of the law. I am sure that we all don't want to return previous state.

Why let them gone?

YESTERDAY, Chinese owned trans-border gas pipe line was launched to its operation. The oil pipe line will join operation sooner as it's already in pipeline. Though oil will be originated from middle east, natural gas is extracted from Myanmar's off-shore joint developed by Korean Daewoo. While Myanmar desperately needs energy to support its ambition to create much needed jobs by attracting FDI, the vast sale of our natural resource to richer neighboring nations is something not right I think. It have been several years ready that we had sold our natural gas to Thailand. Now another customer came in at China. India is going to join soon to absorb our natural gas by planning to build another trans-border pipe line.

Geographically, we are amid of energy hungry nations and we got to take extra care when we are being approached by them for our natural resources. Otherwise, our natural resource will belong to our neighbor countries, instead of our people. We definitely need those natural gases to use in our energy sector projects in order to increase electricity supply to our people and industrial zones. Though we are one of top nations in the world who export natural gas, our people still cannot afford and access the cooking gas to date. As a result, they are laboring with using firewood and charcoal that somewhat encourage deforestation. I read a report that suggest Myanmar is losing 50,000 acres every single year and it is quite alarming. We are in the countries who is losing with the fastest rate in this planet. No wonder our climate has changed visibly in recent years. 

Our officials must be wise enough if we are to avoid natural resource curse and prevent our national and people interests. I am sadden to see a map of transnational gas&oil pipeline going to other countries. It look like other people are absorbing the best part of our natural resource and our authority and people look helpless seeing let them go outward. It is appalling even more when we know that we are selling our precious resource with the price far less than market price due to lack of transparency and widely spread corruption among top officials. As a member of public, I feel sorry to learn this sorrowful story in which our officials yet to change their mindset despite the government have been changed to republic from military regime in past.