Aged Care and Maintenance of Parents Act (SINGAPORE)
By todayinsingapore, June 12, 2009
As the economic downturn deepens, more children are reportedly finding it tougher to support their aged parents. One nursing home in Singapore was saddled with $11,576 of unpaid bills, due to family members who could not pay for the care of their elderly folks. While there were cases of next of kin who refused to pay the bill upon their relative’s demise, the majority could not afford to pay because of job losses, pay cuts or unexpected illnesses. At Ju Eng Home for Senior Citizens, the bad debts doubled to $60,000 last year. In the first 5 months of this year, already more than $40,000 is owed the home. The result: more seniors are suing their own children for maintenance through the 14-year-old Maintenance of Parents Act, up from 79 cases in 2006 to 127 cases in 2008.
Concerned members of parliament urged the Government to do more to help. But instead of rendering financial assistance, Minister of Community Development Vivian Balakrishnan promised that the Act “will be given more teeth“. Currently, a person who disobeys the Tribunal for the Maintenance of Parents order can be jailed for up to 6 months. Changi Prison is going to be one crowded place.
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What Would I Say??
I just don’t get it sometimes. How come a first world country with such fame for technology, culture, and education like Singapore could be one of the worst places in the world related to the parents abusing issue?
It is pretty well known issue in Singapore about abandoned parents. Old citizens in Singapore were usually treated not properly by their own children, by “dispose” them to the Senior Citizen Housing or Elder Nursing house; which I think is very irresponsible and ingratitude kind of act, or I could simply say, a passive oppressive action.
Actually, Elder Nursing house is not pretty bad idea, but in Singapore, it is kind of common actually that people were literally “abandon” their parents. My Singaporean friend told me that it is common to find an old and helpless citizen literally crying because he/she forgotten by their own children, even in a big holiday such as Christmas and new year.
“They just stare and crying over the window, envied for their “lucky” friends who were visited by their family”, Said my friend.
To think that Singapore is well known for its advance progress in education of a human, this kind of problem put me in a different paradigm about Singapore, which is: Singapore has failed to develop the manner education in society which compels government to act oppressively to banish this children-passive-oppressive-manner toward their own parents.
It’s a surprise for me to find out how common is parent abusing in the Singapore; I mean, at first I would never think about these problem would occurs in a modern country like Singapore, but the fact is, this is happened for real; and another fact is that this issue is too severe that every years (especially on Christmas and new year) the government form an independence society division (which consist of concerned people) to voluntarily helps or at least cherish those poor abandoned old citizens who live in the elder nursing house throughout Singapore.
What I’d like to discuss here is the Singapore government Oppressive action in order to oppress these kind of passive-Oppressive manner in society.
First I want to explain my definition about passive-oppressive manner. From what I conclude based on the Paulo Freirie books “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, one of the main characteristic of the Oppressor is that they tend to diminish or in many cases, banish the other people’s rights in society. Based on that interpretation, I classify these kind of oppressive action as a passive ones, because the oppressor (which is the ungrateful children) indirectly banish and diminish their parents (oppressed) rights to live as a family.
Furthermore in the article I provided above, I found a interesting contrastive oppressive action to fight against this passive-oppression, which comes from the government itself.
I think this is what we could call a positive oppressive but on the other hand, another kind of negative oppression could be happened. If you notice the article above, it is stated that the Minister of Community Development Vivian Balakrishnan promised that the Act “will be given more teeth“, in the form of the 6 month jail punishment for a person who disobeys the Tribunal for the Maintenance of Parents.
In my opinion, it is better to give a financial assistance or a financial punishment for the children who disobey the maintenance of parents instead of a 6 month jail punishment (which is an effective propaganda), Why? It is simply because there is always a chance for an irresponsible person to use this act as his/her self profit (in a negative manner of course). This act can be a effective tools for a irresponsible senior citizen to terrorize or blackmailing their own children; perhaps the chance is little, but hey? There will always be a chance that an irresponsible people use the Parents Maintenance act for it, right?
Once again we are put in a difficult situation here, a dilemma if I must say. It’s like a double edged sword or in Indonesian term I would like to say “bagai buah simalakama”, in one side this act is used to re-attain the broken law of human manner but on the other side, this act of government could open an opportunity for the other irresponsible person to be the oppressor and use it as the means of the oppressive actions.
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