Singapore—Sometimes MPs are called upon to wear different hats says Cheng Li Hui, who has served as a Member of Parliament at Tampines GRC since 2015 and is part of PAP’s winning slate in this year’s election.
Ms Cheng took to Facebook on Thursday (July 16) to tell the story of Madam Tan, whom she met on a house visit a few years ago. And while her needs seem to be taken care of from a room rental and by her children, the MP noticed a certain sadness in the older woman that she could not quite comprehend.
“I did not take any photo and just held her hand through the closed grille,” the MP wrote.
https://www.facebook.com/chenglihui.sg/posts/3244412138956210
Some years later, in November 2019, she visited Mdm Tan once more, whom she described to be in good spirits. The reason for the older woman’s happiness, Ms Cheng found out, was that her son was coming home from prison. This gave Mdm Tan strength, Ms Cheng added.
In December of that year, Mdm Tan went to see the MP at a Meet the People session, saddened that her son had not come home from jail after all, where he had been incarcerated for two decades.
Ms Cheng then assured her that she would help Mdm Tan fight to get home detention for her son, so that he could be with his mother during her waning years.
The MP wrote, “Sometimes residents asked us for testimonies and we couldn’t (sic) because we do not know the person. But I witnessed how much strength it gave her and I could strongly attest to the need for her son to be with her.”
She added that Mdm Tan had been hospitalized and died during the GE, but that her son had been by her side in the hospital.
“We just made it to fulfilling her last wish,” wrote Ms Cheng.
She added that she wept as she read the email from Mdm Tan’s niece, adding,
“It almost felt like destiny.
Some residents want their MP to be estate manager, (sic) some to be eloquent advocates for certain causes, some to take care of them, we wear many hats.
I am the quiet type but I’m usually very cheery and I believe in my work, my party and how our leaders have their hearts in the right place.”
Ms Cheng added a screenshot of the email written by Mdm Tan’s niece to her, which contained a narrative of their visit to Ms Cheng’s MPS last December.
She wrote how grateful her aunt was that Ms Cheng had remembered the situation with her son, and that Mdm Tan kept the photo of Ms Cheng’s visit from 2015.
The niece added that her aunt told her “to send our deepest thanks to Ms Cheng on her behalf for the release of her son before she passed on. After twenty long years of waiting, it was the only thing that she kept as her last wish.” —TISG