Kapok: The art of irrelevance

Let’s be honest, mumbling half-hearted speeches full of empty promises year after year borders on art. More so when you happen to be an accidental leader with absolutely no talent for public encounters. Even more so when you know that nobody will really pay attention, that this will be your last policy address and that you will never be held accountable for anything. There is a Samuel Beckett-esque dimension to it, like “Waiting for Godot” in politics: it is absurd and surreal at the same time, and yet it impacts people’s lives, and it even allows human beings to die under your watch because you have been standing by instead of acting.

The absence of human empathy in the whole exercise is truly striking. Last year when Typhoon Hato had just devastated the city and killed 10 people less than three months before, the 2018 policy address started with the exhilarating words: “In accordance with the Basic Law…” (this is also true in Chinese). But clearly, last year’s circumstances were not to be blamed as the 2016 incipit was even worse — “In accordance with Article 65 of the Basic Law of Macao…” Mind you, this was not always the case. Back in March 2010, Chief Executive (CE)  Chui Sai On’s first-ever policy address started with the words “Spring is in the air…” 春暖花開，萬物欣欣向榮之際. Should we always have policy addresses delivered in early spring then?

Irony aside, something was broken between the CE and the citizens along the way, something that we can date back to the early months of Chui’s second term. The attempt at mending things now appears crude when compared to the first entry on Chui’s brand new blog posted in May 2015 and the latest one pinned two weeks ago in mid-October: we went from “Serene and calm, he wisely observes the course of the world” to “Integrating into the Greater Bay and initiating a new development”! A failed poetic attempt will always be better than repetitive gobbledygook. Chui did hit rock-bottom popularity in December 2017 when, for the first time ever, a CE’s approval rating went below the symbolic 50% line. This could thus explain the attempt at humbleness, despite the absolute dullness of the phrasing: we went from “Development Plan in Progress for Building a Perfect Home” (the official translation!) in November 2016 to “Be pragmatic yet enterprising, and share the fruits of development” in November 2017.

What will really be at stake on Nov. 15 and in the following days has not much to do with either the title or the substance of the address. We now have a five-year plan and its yearly rate of execution will certainly be close to the one announced last year — 80 percent or more! Then, the whole first part of the address will consist of sweeteners, among which the wealth partaking scheme will play an essential role. Actually, given that Chui’s reputation will never be salvaged and that he will soon be gone, I would suggest that now is the perfect time to suppress what was introduced by Edmund Ho in 2008: the wealth partaking scheme, from a purely rational point of view, is both inefficient and unfair.

No, what will really matter in two weeks’ time is the positioning of the political heavyweights for next year’s (s)election. If tradition prevails, Ho Iat Seng will be given the nod and criticisms directed at the government will be loud and persistent. If capacity — who is credited for taking the right steps in preventing another disaster when Typhoon Mangkhut blasted the city in September? — and political rectitude triumph, Secretary Wong Sio Chak will have the upper hand, and patriotic family politics, along with incompetence will be severely and durably crippled.

And if there should be no room for the king’s jester to maneuver— Secretary Tam — let’s recall that accidents do happen in Macao, with or without depressive subjects!

Published in Macau Daily Times on November 2, 2018

Kapok: Social Responsibility

The summary of the 2014 Chief Executive policy address included a small box, oddly entitled “Tips for the Elderly”, in which we were told that elderly citizens were entitled to a significant subsidy of MOP62,000 per year “or approximately MOP5,166 per month”.  This supposedly included the wealth partaking scheme, to which the healthcare vouchers of MOP600 should be added. For the 2015 fiscal year, this subsidy increased slightly, inching towards MOP70,000 a year, and then there are also many other subventions for “disadvantaged people” and citizens with disabilities, including a one-year waver for public housing, a daily food aid budget or a disability pension of up to MOP15,000 per year. All of these measures are real and substantial, even though I do not know anybody around me who could live on that kind of budget, except of course for Filipino, Indonesian or Vietnamese domestic helpers, who as full-time employees working six-days a week—and often more—are entitled to a meager minimum of MOP3,000 per month, including their lodging allowance.
The video of a middle-aged lady slapping an elderly woman in a wheelchair that went viral on social media earlier this week is a clear reminder that poverty, disability or ageing issues cannot be quantified, whatever the amount of money granted. True, the “slapping incident” almost immediately prompted a swift reaction from authorities: the Public Security Police quickly referred the case to the Social Welfare Bureau, resulting in the perpetrator being deferred to the Public Prosecutions Office—for having harmed the physical integrity of another person—and the abused lady being transferred to an elderly residential care home. But even though this family was clearly identified by social services and had already benefited from government-sponsored financial aid as well as counseling, this “incident” has also triggered a community-wide soul-searching campaign onto the how and why this kind of situation transpired. As Cecilia Ho, a social worker, pointed out, “in this case, the result is suspected domestic violence, but the cause is social responsibility.”
Beyond financial aid and legal dispositions, many issues are at stake: the fact that Macao is a rapidly ageing society; the availability and quality of welfare infrastructure and the general quality of life of citizens.
The ageing ratio (the elderly to the youth population) has dramatically increased between the two censuses from 33.6 in 2001 to 60.7% in 2011, and even stood at 73.8 in 2014! The elderly now account for 8.4% of the total population. Facilities for elderly or mentally-challenged people are limited and not sufficiently staffed, be them run by NGOs or private entities, and Paul Pun, the director of Caritas, has stressed that the occurrence of such a dramatic and “shocking” situation might actually be “the tip of the iceberg” and not really the exception.
One of the big ideas proposed by the government is to develop additional facilities on Hengqin Island, as stated again in April by Alexis Tam. But then, what will be the terms and with what kind of consequences for the cohesiveness of the community and inter-generational relations? If Secretary Tam is right to urge his services to do more and better, the head of the Family and Community Service department, Au Chi Keung, is equally right when he explains that beyond the widely-shared revulsion, there was an extraordinary amount of “stress” affecting the perpetrator that led to that horrific occurrence: the scene took place in one of the most densely populated districts of Macao, Fai Chi Kei, and it was confirmed later that the old lady was the mother of the one slapping her, and had suffered a stroke. Reports by the media and social workers then indicated that the middle-aged lady was the only breadwinner in the family and that besides her handicapped mother—who was smacked because she refused to activate the break on her wheelchair—she also had to take care of an unemployed father and a mentally-challenged brother. When one has to work 48 hours a week to ensure the mere survival of a family, with no prospects of improving her situation and almost no holidays, along with deficient social services and degraded neighborhoods, what are the conditions ripe for?

Published in Macau Daily Times, June 26th 2015

Kapok: Embrace a Full Ban!

When conflicts of interests are too blatant, public debate can only be farcical, and yet it is revealing of the challenges confronting the new government. The recent exchanges between some legislators and the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam are a remarkable case in point.
Ever since he took office in December 2014, Mr Tam has made no secret that his number one concern would be “public health” and shortly after a comprehensive survey on the “Regime for the prevention and control of smoking” was released at the end of January, he announced, supposedly “on his own” – or so are we led to believe by not so-friendly commentators – that the government would submit a revised piece of legislation within the first half of 2015 that would make way for a full ban on smoking inside casinos, thus implying that VIP rooms would be involved and smoking lounges on mass floors no longer allowed. Mr Tam reiterated that engagement in April during the policy address, and again this week, while reporting to the legislators.
On Mr Tam’s side, there is an ever-growing corpus of medical studies showing that second-hand smoking is in fact as bad as direct inhaling, recommendations made by the World Health Organisation (agreed to by China’s Ministry of Health since 2007) noting that there is no existing technical solution that will equate to non-smoking, and quite a significant number of business-minded pieces of scholarship attesting that smoking bans have not had an adverse impact on revenues in business sectors of direct concern, and essentially the hospitality sector. Clearly, full smoking bans in public places are the trend, so much so that even permissive New Orleans has banned smoking in bars, casinos and other public areas starting on April 22nd.
Mr Tam has also on his side the spirit of the law that was passed in 2011—the first aim of the law being “to protect [the citizens] from exposure to tobacco smoke”—, the fact that the main causes of death in Macao are aggravated by the exposure to tobacco smoke, and the wish expressed by the frontline workers of the industry to see a full ban on smoking being implemented—87.20% of those directly exposed, the croupiers and casino floor staff. Moreover, in the broader context of China—something far more prevalent these days—the National People’s Congress has committed the country to “full implementation of the smoking ban in public places” ever since it voted in the 12th Five-Year Plan in March 2011.
Adversely, Mr Tam is pitted by the gaming industry that has been relentless in trying to lobby every level of government—including Beijing in March during the double congress—in favour of airport-style smoking lounges, with separate ventilation systems and negative pressure in relation to adjacent areas, in accordance with the regulation published by the Chief Executive in June 2014. Several casino operators, including one with a seat in the legislature, have argued that voiding the previous (and rather recent) regulation would make limited (and costly) sense, and moreover that gambling revenues have been in shambles since June last year and thus a full smoking ban could translate into an additional loss estimated at 15%—no methodology given, but the figure is repeated over and over again.
The problem is that it took an extraordinary amount of time to pass the initial law (16 months, to be precise) back in 2011, and this in no small thanks to Mr Chan Chak Mo (a representative for culture!), one of the most vocal voices against Mr Tam today and the number one defender of the food and beverage industry—his group, Future Bright, is everywhere to be seen in all casinos and just lost 95.6% of its profits in the first quarter of 2015. The problem is then that casinos benefited from a three-year reprieve. The problem is that many casinos failed the health bureau tests and everybody was playing cat and mouse with the new regulations.
More compliance with the spirit of the law might have prevented a change in tune. Lobbying failed, now there is only room for embrace.

Published in Macau Daily Times, May 15th 2015

Kapok: The way ahead is long

Thanks to Linkedin, I sometimes get to read articles about management in general and human relations at work, in particular, that I would otherwise simply brush aside for lack of substance and meaning. Many a time, scholars who specialise in the management of people in a working setting are failed businessmen, lack the broadness of mind to embrace economics, miss the point of power politics and are too short in scientific rigour to engage in psychology. When they focus on cross-cultural interactions, it often gets worse: culture gets reified and learning how to communicate gets truncated into imperfect lists of dos and don’ts.
Linkedin describes itself as a “business-oriented social networking service”, so it cannot really be blamed for endlessly publishing postings, papers and quotes about what to expect from a manager. Clearly, this is a network for people who think of themselves as decision-makers, and are always eager to grab a new opportunity—“losers find excuses, winners find solutions” reads one, “you create your own opportunity” reads another.Yet, listening to the new team of secretaries in Macao addressing for the first time the legislature in the past few weeks has made me reconsider a classic dilemma that scholars in the field of human resources never fail to examine and cross-examine: the one of leadership versus management. The artificiality of the boundary between one and the other is obvious, and depending on the scale of the operation, it is often impossible to make a distinction. The head of a small organization usually has to be a leader as well as a manager as there is no way things can be delegated. Also, competing characteristics can be complementary even though the idea that one set of features cannot exist without the other is fallacious: a so-called manager can continue to operate even though the leader has no vision and an institution can continue to strive even though the vision of its leader is completely distorted—absurd visions being only bearable as long as they are not instantly lethal, especially when it comes to public administration.
In the case of Macao, I would argue that what inspired the clean slate approach of a brand new government last December after 15 years of more or less the same was having too many insulated managers and no leader. Contrary to what I believed for a long time, the absence of leadership was more consequential than essential: the burdening legacy of the previous leadership appears to have acted almost right from the start as some kind of tantalizing, paralyzing and lurking influence. Social disgruntlement coupled with a looming economic recession and a wider political shift in the mainland precipitated the need for change.Because of Easter and Qingming, the addresses by the secretaries have been dragging far too long. So as to give an even greater sense of efficiency – the one virtue that had been lacking in Chui I – everything should have been wrapped up in a week or so instead of starting March 23 and finishing April 16! Yet, with maybe the notable exception of Sonia Chan who has yet to prove herself, the secretaries have displayed a remarkable sense of commitment in restituting the daily operations of their portfolio together with the challenges—being true managers—and a commendable capacity to project their work and priorities into the future—being true leaders. They have done so with an amount of resoluteness and power of conviction not often seen in this polity. Sometimes even with humour, as when Alexis Tam Chon Weng retorted to legislator Fong Chi Keong who had quoted the most famous poem of Qu Yuan (“The way ahead is long, and I do not see any ending, yet high and low I’ll search with determination”) that he hoped he would not have to drown himself if he failed to implement his “Glorious five years’” policy! With an additional promise of accountability, let’s hope that they will be able to now work as a team to confront the many vested interests that have marred the city far too long.

Published in Macau Daily Times, April 17 2015

Kapok: Everything in style

This is an ancient dilemma: which one should prevail, substance over form or the opposite? For a very long time substance was always the one considered to be the most important. Getting an education used to mean being “elevated” by the teaching of the classics, and that knowledge was provided through the tedious study of the original texts, the teacher acting as the sole guarantor of compliance. In France, today still, primary and secondary students are called “élèves”, the ones being elevated—students have to make the extra effort to reach the teacher’s level. Up to the early years of the twentieth century in China, imperial exams were based on the perfect recitation of the Confucian classics and the complete subjugation to extremely formal literary styles—writing poetry usually came later, either after having fallen from grace or resigning from the civil service. In business, because of the industrial nature of our societies, the quality of the product used to be everything: the longevity of goods, for example, was the decisive testimony of engineering prowess. Stockings for women were meant to resist the hardship of any labor in the 1950s still, even while working the fields!
Things have changed, and not only because more than half of the world’s population is now living in urban areas. With the advent of mass education in the 1960s, the challenge has been to get a majority of the community up to a given level, and to a certain extent—the battle is not over—form prevailed: student-centered education became imperative, and what was to be taught became second to what had been learnt. For sure, the “middleisation” of society has had its virtues and benefits. With the advent of a consumerist society, the marketing and packaging of merchandise came to play a dominant role. Durability was no longer the crux of the matter: products were to be enticing and pushed to shoppers in order for consuming-cycles to be reduced. Quite a significant number of sophisticated goods, because of fast technological advance, are today meant to be renewed on a yearly basis—think iPhone 6, oops! Sorry, the 6S is already out! But then, you would be branded an environmental criminal if you had kept your car or your washing machine from 10 years ago! Ultimately—and this is true wisdom—one has to find a balance.
In politics, things are not much different, and Macao is of course no stranger to the need of striking a balance between form and substance. Take the misogynistic and phallocratic outbursts of legislator Fong Chi Keong who publicly advocates a good beating for spouses who talk back to their husbands: this is both unprincipled and devoid of any underpinning. If you add to that the flowery language, the burlesque act and the gravelly voice, not much form is left either, unless you consider crudeness as a proper stylish demeanor for a representative of the highest authority. Then, take our new secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam. What a change! Superman Tam, as he is often referred to, is not only a workaholic but also an avid communicator. Interviews are given to the Portuguese press—in Portuguese—, and mind you, for the first time ever, All About Macao, one of the few Chinese-speaking liberal newspapers in town, got to be graced with a one-on-one interview. Short-term measures for both healthcare and education are already being announced, more than two months prior to the policy address. A vision is given for the next five years: could that be the end of short-termism? And then, City of Dreams gets to nag the Health Bureau over smoking areas at a time when the government is reviewing the tobacco control rules: the bureau’s director, under Mr Tam’s benevolent gaze, immediately announces that fines could soon become really deterring—how many times the MOP$100,000 already imposed? Chui Sai On himself could weigh in: after all, he can decide to simply terminate the smoking sections for repeat offenders. Well, everything is possible, even taxis have stopped fishing… That makes us look good!

Published in Macau Daily Times on January 30th 2015

Kapok: Expected Expectations

Nobody can deny it: the announcement of the new government line-up last Monday did not come as a surprise, quite the opposite. Secretaries’ and other senior officials’ names had been the talk of the town since early November. First on social media platforms, and then splashed on the web-based liberal Aamacau.com (All About Macau, 論盡媒體) on November 8th and ultimately confirmed, in a Pravda-like announcement, on November 11th as the masthead of the front page of the Macau Daily News. Interesting to note that the city’s main pro-government and pro-China daily has lost part of its edge—it was late compared to new electronic media—and yet journalists and commentators only went berserk after the list had been anointed by the establishment’s mouthpiece, here trusted almost like the “official gazette”—can anybody imagine the Ta Kung Pao or the Oriental Daily News announcing the new government beforehand in Hong Kong and everybody else taking it for granted?
Before the summer, rumours were rife as to who would be the chosen ones, but the idea of a complete fresh start was remote, to say the least. The retirement perks bill, despite its fiasco, had confirmed that some kind of musical chairs game was at play, and the names of Lionel Leong Vai Tak as well as that of Alexis Tam Chon Weng were in the mind if not on the lips of everybody slightly interested in Macao politics. But then, the rationale was that continuity would be preserved, and that “good soldiers”, even though they had proven themselves dully unimaginative, would stay on. Even Lau Si Io, the secretary for Transport and Public Works, most probably the most unanimously derided high official, was believed to keep his portfolio. Truly, who would accept the job that is at the heart of most livelihood issues in Macao— transport and housing, and in that order, if the government’s think tank is to be trusted—and still ignominiously tainted by the Ao Man-long scandal of 2006? No wonder that Raimundo Arrais do Rosário had to be called back from his decade long spell in Europe representing Macao…
Why then the need for such an apparent “clean slate” approach? First and quite ironically, because Chui Sai On himself was returned unopposed in his Chief Executive position, thus demeaning the very nature of an election by making it totally uncompetitive. Rigidity on the one hand was calling for more flexibility on the other. Second, because a real popular demand does exist and moreover was taken into account by Chui the candidate. On the side of popular demand, the unfairness of the retirement perks bill pushed 20,000 people onto the streets in May, ultimately forcing the government to bury the bill for good. And despite the many hurdles and intimidations faced by the organisers of the Macau civic referendum of late August, close to 9,000 citizens took part in this independent probing of citizens’ preferences. Eventually, the whole of Chui’s “campaign” was about him having heard the demands of the people, as expressed by the more than 100,000 suggestions and opinions sent to his office while “on the campaign trail”. And third, the Hong Kong SAR situation, whatever the perception, positive or negative, has had a corroding effect on the self-confidence of the powers that be, and in order to prevent a possible stalemate, preemptively providing a resolute stance for (orderly) change appears to be a smart move—beyond the real necessity to do so.
And then came Li Fei, the chairman of the Macau Basic Law Committee and the Deputy Secretary-General of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, the very same man who came to Hong Kong in late August to explain the ruling of the standing committee over universal suffrage in our sister SAR, and now most notorious for having said that “Only one person [candidate] does not make an election, but too many is not proper either”. While attending a forum in Macao this week, he remarked that contrary to what some people think, deep-seated problems in Macao do not lie in the nature of political governance or stem from the fact that Macao is not democratic enough, but rather derive from Macao’s “own limitations”, the system inherited from the Portuguese colonial administration and other factors related to social and economic development. He then made it clear that “the overwhelming dominance of gambling in Macao is not in line with the overall interest of Macao” and furthermore that it is not in the “socioeconomic safety, stability and developmental interest of the mainland and the whole nation”. What is thus asked from Macao is to reinvent itself with much less gambling and much more patriotism. That for sure requires a whole new team!

Published in Macau Daily Times on December 5th 2014.