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In a forum letter published by the national broadsheet yesterday (21 Aug), a Singaporean asserted that he is fortunate to be a Singaporean after listening to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day Rally (NDR) speech on Sunday (18 Aug).

He said: “I was really impressed and consider myself very fortunate to be a Singaporean after listening to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day Rally speech.”

The forum letter writer, Mr Luo Siao Ping, said that PM Lee’s speech showed the “pragmatism and foresight” of Government leaders and praised the leaders for addressing national issues for Singaporeans today and Singaporeans in the future. He said that this “demonstrates our leaders’ pragmatic and sensible approach to addressing national issues.”

Mr Luo specifically complimented PM Lee’s points on how Singapore can tackle climate change and the long-term infrastructural plans to develop Greater Southern Waterfront and Pulau Brani.

The Straits Times did not mention that Mr Luo is a Human Resources (HR) director at SingTel subsidiary, NCS. NCS, formerly known as National Computer Systems, was founded by the Singapore Government in 1981.

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The organisation was restructured as a commercial entity in 1996 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of SingTel Group in 1997. Today, SingTel is majority owned by Temasek Holdings, a sovereign wealth fund that serves as the investment arm of the Singapore government.

In 2015, the Straits Times ran a feature on Mr Luo. In the feature, Mr Luo said that he is married to an HR professional, with whom he has two sons, and that his family lives in a condominium in Lorong Chuan.

Mr Luo said that he started writing forum letters to the newspaper in 2014 and feels that writing such letters is his “small way of doing something about things I care about.”

He added that his wish for Singapore is that “the country continues to be led by clean and capable leaders, and that it achieves good economic growth, with people respecting a divergence of views within the context of a traditional society and family framework.” -/TISG