Power of the Net

although maybe not the way PM Lee had expected? For those not expecting, you may not be following this as closely, so I will sketch out the timeline.

17th Aug 8pm: PM Lee made his National Day rally speech. Already, gossipvine of the net already had leaked some of the benefits and 'reliable sources' saying that the benefits start 1st Jan 2009. But many mothers-to-be secretly harboured hope otherwise.

18th Aug 8pm: Benefits were announced as rally was telecasted; and the gossipvine of the net was assessed to be fairly accurate. Mothers-to-be still bore hope that implementation date would be earlier.

20th Aug 1pm: Wong KS announced the detailed plan and yes, implementation date was 1st Jan 2009. This sparked much comment online and within hours, a physical petition was drawn up and about 200 names + NRIC numbers were gathered in time for a Meet-the-People's session at AMK (wonder who's GRC is it ;P). Aside from that, groups were set up all over the place, like facebook, online petitions, and in many many forum threads.

21st Aug: WKS gave some reason on Today papers for the implementation date to be 1st Jan. This sparked much debate in the forums, and many responses started flooding in as people analysed the package from head to toe. Petition names more than doubled. Suggestions of demonstrations were rife.

21st Aug 8+pm: Announcement that benefits will be backdated about only 30 hours after the implementation date had been announced.

My views: Okay, since the government decided to backdate the benefits, I will reserve my negative comments; which I didn't do at the many forums I suddenly signed up yesterday when I posted my comments fairly liberally. I guess this shows that our government is indeed open to changes and the public opinion (more so than previously). More importantly, I guess I feel that their flexibility and speed of action was a bit surprising to me. Did I think the petition would work? Well, honestly, no really. Maybe only 70% haha. But i suspect the MTPS increased that % somewhat. I think the change came about mainly coz of other reasons that netizens managed to dig out. Unless our crafty government had this planned all the while up their sleeve, like some netizens suggested. But somehow, I doubt it =) Nonetheless, it is good news for many. Cheers for all who made it possible.