Praying for Babu

Waking up on Friday morning after learning the shocking news that your mum has cancer is not something that I am looking forward to. The sad news has somehow not sunk in yet. There were just too many questions that remained unanswered. why did this thing happen? am I going to lose her? is this curable? what can I do? why is the full diagnosis not released yet? the feeling of helplessness crept in constantly in my head. when the gastro specialist broke the news, I just broke down in tears inconsolable..I really couldnt accept the news. I was just like this little child begging to the doctor to help my mum get better. “is there a cure?” I asked. The doctor said if the cancer is still at an early stage, yes there is hope by removing the cancerous part of her stomach but if it has already spread to other organs then things could become complicated and that was why they needed a full diagnosis by putting her on a CT scan. I was simply frantically calling everyone that I knew at RIPAS to help babu be put on the CT scan on a priority basis. Some were helpful some were none. So I sought help by pleading my mum’s case. I told them the actual endoscopy was done many weeks earlier and now that the specialist confirmed that she has cancer, the least the hospital could do was to put her on a priority list for a full CT scan. I was thankful that my good friend Hj M and Dato S, who is now a permanent secretary. They had helped me a lot to get to the right people. So thank you to both of you sir. I was really upset with some of the nurses at the hospital where my babu was warded. She was admitted at the ward for her high blood sugar level. But earlier in the weeks, she was already seeing the ENT & gastro specialists as she complained of heart burn. She had an endoscopy done on her and the earlier result showed she had stomach ulcers. When I told them that she was supposed to have a second review at the specialist centre, the nurses told me that we couldnt bring her there as she was now already admitted in the ward and she should be in their care and there would be doctors on duty to attend to her so they told me. They kept telling me that mum only had stomach ulcers and her blood sugar level was high and she had gone to see the specialist that morning. But I told them that that the appointment card stated that she had her review at 2 pm that afternoon and the least they could do was to check with the specialist centre if this was true. Not convinced with their explanation, I went to the specialist centre with my wife and little sister and went to talk the specialist myself. He was very gentle and helpful. True enough, there was an appointment for my mum’s review and true enough it was more than just a mere stomach ulcers. I was devastated. There was a mixed feeling of anger and helplessness. I was angry with the nurses for trivializing the situation. I was feeling helpless as I didnt know exactly what to expect.

(written 8 am 10 October)

The good news, mum had her CT Scan done and another good news was also that the result showed her cancer is still at an early stage. Now we all know this is curable. Alhamdullilah. But there is still the lingering question on what best options available to her. She is diabetic and her blood sugar level is still very high. I sought advice from Dr S who is a cancer expert. Whether she would go for a chemo theraphy and surgery to remove the cancerous part would depend on her health condition. so he told me that mum has to be healthy, so the first priority is to get her blood sugar level down to normal. I pray to Allah the Merciful, give my mum the strength. please give her the will to live. Amin.

Little Haziq and his antics

My youngest 3 year old son lil haziq has this funny habit when he gets upset with me.  Instead of throwing tantrums he would just sit still and start to grimace making funny faces with his eye brows almost joined together.  I would usually just laugh at him and he would get more upset with me as he would know I wasnt taking him seriously.  The other day, he wanted to go to jungle gym, a pay-as-you-enter playground down at Kiulap, in town. I told him that we couldnt go there as often he would like to as its very expensive. So he started to get upset. But what was so hilarious he simply lied flat on the floor with his face down  refusing to budge. He just lied there completely motionless and refused to talk to me.  So I took a few shots of his antics.  My wife and I would usually in our quite moments together share some of these funny antics of all our kids and the littlest one is by far the most hilarious.  I keep reminding my wife that our life would really be empty without them and we should consider ourselves lucky of having 6 wonderful kids with all their different amusing characters. 

Dont "dis" the accountability especially if you are a public servant!

One ramadan a couple of nights ago, I had a very interesting “sahur-talk” at a restaurant in town with a couple of friends and one of them happened to be a very senior public servant. The talk centered on the current topsy-turvy  baffling  Malaysian politics and the uncertainty surrounding the BN led government and on the rising support of the PKR led Anwar. The “sahur table” somewhat became our little speakers’ corner where everyone on the table was exercising their right to be heard. What led me to become more engrossed in the conversation was at the way my senior friend commented that the MPs whether in the Government or in the opposition could if they wanted vote with their conscience when it comes to passing legislation. so at the end of the day he continued to say, it didnt really matter if the Government had a slim or huge majority in parliament as MPs are free to vote with their conscience. Whilst I didnt disagree with what he said, I told him that in any westminster style parliamentary system there is such a person called the party whip whose job it is to ensure that party members toe the party line.  Further more, there is also public accountability because in a Government of the people, which was made by and for the people, there is such a thing as party manifesto which is like a moral contract that binds between those who get elected and those who elected the MPs into office in the first place. I told my little audience that If the people elected you into office because of your promise to wipe out corruption then you better make sure you deliver your promises for otherwise people will lose faith in you should you fail to deliver your promise. Or if you promised to cut down taxes in your party manifesto but somehow passed legislation to increase the taxes, you can be sure you wont get reelected come the next election.   This is I think the current debacle faced by Pak Lah, his basic failures to deliver what he had promised. But I am not here to write about just Msian politics or the conundrum faced by Pak Lah.  I am more interested to the very notion of public accountability in the public service as I am since I took over the new post very much committed to championing this cause.  Public accountability is not and cannot just be an illusory principle..

I now know that statistically experts have said that only 2 to 3 % of abuse of power gets reported either in the public or private sector.  Abuse of power can include, misuse of funds, fraud, theft, corruption, office pilfering or misuse of office or corporate assets.  One report that I read before by a well known accounting firm put it that office pilfering like taking home the office stationaries like pens, papers or even using the office phones for overseas private calls or the photocopy machines to make copies for the exam papers of the employees’ children are very commonplace and actually have put a burden to the operational expenditure (OPEX) of the organisations. This is only the lower end of the scale when it comes to abuse of power. The bigger ones that often are really left unnoticed is the abuse of authority or in the case of public servant the abuse of his public office for personal gain, the most common of which is market collusion where the employee uses his authority by pre-selecting vendors and awarding them to any tenders or procurement contracts done by the organisation. In return the employee takes a commission for every contract award given to his pre-selected vendors. This is blatant corruption to its very core. Many experts have actually estimated that this form of abuse of power can cost between 5 to 10 %  of the total cost of the contract award. So, I can only imagine that if the Government were to allocate $1 billion dollars earmarked for the development budget, a figure as high as $100 million dollars can simply be squandered by all the Mister 10 percents! Sadly many see this as an accepted business cost.  I once had a conversation with another senior public servant who said that in business, corruption is part of the business costs which are often disguised in many forms such as entertainment or under such heading like consultancy fees. Whilst I am not disputing that that practice does happen, it is not something that we should tolerate. More so if the corruption affects the use of public funds, the costs would somehow be consumed by the Government through inflated contract pricing.  The one thing that we need to understand is that whatever “business costs” incurred by the vendor, we can be sure that they will be taken in as a sunken costs should the vendor gets awarded with the contract or tender. So at the end, it is the Government that suffers in terms of the opportunity costs.  Just imagine how much the Government can do with the $100 million that is pilfered through corruption or the criminal breach of trust? for a start we can build one school for $5-15 million or a mosque for $5 million.  {this is not a complete article..I will complete it after this Hari Raya honeymoon is over..to be continued}

The accidental New layout

What have I done? I was tinkering on the theme of my blog by downloading some free xml code that I stumbled upon on the web. It looks cool but some of the original features like the Archives have gone missing! now I dont know how to get back to the original one. 

Job Application

My friend sent me an email with this attachment . she convinced me that this was an original job application of a 75 year old man. I dont know if I should believe her but it sure is so hilarious!

Eid Mubarak or as we say it here "selamat hari raya aidil fitri"

Raya is coming to Brunei in either 2 or 3 days' time depending whether or not the moon is sighted or not. The moon sighting will be done tomorrow just before dusk. so if the moon is sighted, it means Eid will be celebrated on wednesday. Otherwise it will fall on Thursday.  I would certainly hope that Eid to fall on Thursday as this would mean that we would have a longer holiday as Friday which is already a holiday for public servants would be replaced with Saturday as the public holiday.

A Stercus accidit's perspective of America today

As a Bruneian thousands of miles away from Uncle Sam, doubtless, I cannot understand the cultural forces behind american politics.  But please don’t get me wrong, I have been to the USA and I love the country and I love the people (well not exactly everyone). I love the way democracy works in that country which shows that we dont have to resort to violence or anarchy like what happen in most other countries to exercise your freedom of thought and your voice.  But as an outsider here is what I see the current situation in the US and its people. 

Most Americans do not travel outside the country. In fact they see that the USA is the world. They can call the “world series” like the baseball world series even though no other countries are participating. Many of them think that only America is effective and that the rest of the world should unquestioningly follow her lead. To them America is, without question, the best country in the world, despite that these people very often have never even visited another country. I find that most of them are shockingly ignorant of the world and because of this they are very gullible. when their leaders say something negative of other countries, they take everything "as is". When Bush said that Saddam was building a nuke bomb and had WMD, most of them believed him.

Many Americans think only in the yin and yang pattern.  Black or white, good or evil, right or wrong.  you are “with me or against me”.   Too them, an action is either right or wrong, you are either a liberal or a conservative.  But the world, on the other hand, does not necessarily fit neatly into that pattern. Switzerland or even my country always prefer to be neutral. You can be a conservative on certain issues and sometimes you can be liberal about certain issues and sometimes you can be neutral on certain issues.  It cannot be that if I differ from you, I am against you.

The US government is surprisingly very open to corruption but somehow it appears to be legal by way of campaign financing, lobbying, and “ I scratch your back and you scratch mine” cronyism.  The jewish lobby for instance is so powerful and none of the Dems or GOP dare enough to make political snipes on Israel for fear of upsetting the fund flows. So we cannot see them as a neutral broker for the peace process in the middle east.

Your President used outright lies to pass legislations to curtail your freedom.  He used the 911 fear and the al-Qaeda fear factor as a smokescreen to pass a series of Acts increasing executive power, to deny access to ever increasing amounts of information about his government and to forbid examination of controversial policies having nothing to do with the war. 

I see McCain, the GOP presidential candidate as an opportunist who became wealthy by having an affair and subsequently marrying a woman from a very wealthy family after his 1st wife had an accident.  He is no war hero. He got caught by the Viet-cong for not taking orders from his superior.  I think his 5 years in the “vietnam hilton” made him an impulsive war mongering hawk simply to get even with everyone .  This is a man who has an inexperienced running mate who used her beauty as a purely political ploy.  This is a man, during an election campaign, refused media interviews on the flimsiest of excuses and now he wanted to postpone the debate. (I’m still waiting for the news of his appearance at the time of writing this blog)

So to me if you voted for this man, you are basically will be giving Bush a third term in office. and pray tell..if this happens I say God please help us!