Sengkang columbarium saga: 挂猪头卖羊肉

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

It is final, the pro-foreign and pro-business Against People Party has driven one of the last few nails into her own coffin for her 2016 funeral and have also successfully prepared her own hi-tech ‘attas’ resting place@ Fernvale Columbarium in Sengkang heartland!!

HDB and URA are unequivocal in taking a ‘legal’ stand that NO regulation has been flouted in the award to the highest bidder, ‘Eternal Pure Pte Ltd’ wholly owned by ‘Life Corporation’, a FOREIGN public listed company, for a public tendered land zoned for “Religious Purpose”, even though it’s a foreign public listed company and a for-profit organization. As long as they fulfilled the letter of the law to operate 80% as a Chinese Temple and only use 20% for a Columbarium which is really their CORE business in their corporate model for offering a full suite of premium funeral services.

There is a very appropriate Chinese Proverb that aptly describes this whole Saga: 挂猪头卖羊肉. (P.s. no disrespect to Buddhists, Hindus or any religion that advocates vegetarian lifestyles.) Translated it means that the product was advertised as pork but in reality it’s mutton being sold!!!

Call it misrepresentation? Call it sugar coating? Or call it a loophole in HDB/URA regulations? It’s not new!!! Our government famously coined and sold us the IR (Integrated Resort) which any fool would know by now, is a CASINO!!! Not one but two in one go, Singaporeans bought the sale pitch, hook, line and sinker! Today many ‘legal’ moneylender shops pepper our neighborhood centres in the heartlands, thanks to the government for extending these credit lines!

Firstly, it’s clear as daylight, HDB advertised the ‘Land for Religious Purpose’ deemed for a ‘Chinese Temple’ but buried the ‘Ancillary Use’ in the fine prints whereby the legal clarification of ‘Ancillary Use’ can only be found in URA master plan for zoning purposes which then reveals it allows for Columbarium, Crematorium etc. Was this an intentional omission or legal run-around? Only HDB can answer the 5.2 million-dollar question!

Certainly HDB can legally fault the buyers for not doing enough due diligence and can safely hide behind legal fine print. BUT last I checked HDB is still a public institution in the civil service beholden to public service; AND it is NOT a private developer who can claim ‘CAVEAT EMPTOR’ (Buyers Beware) and easily wash their hands from their responsibilities to the buyers who are not just buyers BUT CITIZENS!

HDB and URA while allowing ‘Eternal Pure’ to mask itself as a Chinese Temple operator when its core business is in Funeral Services and its stated intended use for the land is for Columbarium; no matter if it’s just 20%, it’s still a Columbarium. While its operation as a Chinese Temple is extremely questionable, even though legally it can and will provide temple services; ethically it’s immoral and despicable because it is neither a religious non-profit entity, nor a bona fide Buddhist/Taoist group affiliated and accountable to our local Buddhist/Taoist Federations. ‘Eternal Pure’, as a secular profit driven company, does not have ‘locus standi’ nor the religious credentials, and to allow it to operate a Chinese Temple as a profit driven business is a mockery and a travesty to the sacrosanct religious worship we hold dear as devout believers of religion.

What differentiates ‘Eternal Pure’ from FOREIGN bogus monks who come regularly from China on visitor visas, don saffron robes and beg for ‘alms’ from unsuspecting Singaporeans in the name of religion? Why go after Kong Hee and gang for using church money for Crossover Project evangelism just because it promotes & profits the secular career of Ho Yeow Sun and doesn’t actually serve religious purposes? BUT IT’S OK for secular profit-driven company to use religion to make money? The Pot calling the kettle BLACK? Double standards?

Secondly, of greater concern is the seemingly tacit blessing of the government for the encroachment of secular business (even foreign companies) to compete with our local religious groups for already scarce, expensive and short lease (30 yrs only) land designated for ‘Religious Purpose’.

This dangerous and politically costly precedent brings with it far reaching implications and consequences, if truly the government has given the green light for the ‘open season bidding’ of ‘Land for Religious Purpose’, making the bidding purely market-driven and income-generating; that local religious groups would be adversely disadvantaged. Many religious groups often have difficulties in finding sufficient space to house their services for their worshippers and their charitable outreach to the society’s needy.

Religious groups are already hard-pressed financially to offer charitable programs without government grants. And to further drain them of precious financial resources so as to compete with public listed companies for land that are rightfully and morally reserved only for religious use; the government is conveniently blurring the line between the secular and religious to milk maximum profits in the sale of public land.

This precedent of a loose and expedient interpretation of ‘Religious Use’ must not be left unchallenged by the different major local religious leaders and federations otherwise anything and everything in religion may be open to be expediently ‘re-defined’ by default at the behest of the government as it deems fit. This Sengkang columbarium saga triggers a lot of questions and does not bode well for the future landscape for religion and governmental relationship.

EXPEDIENCY UNMASKED

* Submitted by TRE reader.


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