These were some rules given to me before the visit.
- Students are to bring along their student ez-link cards or NRICs to exchange for the security passes.
- Students are to come dressed in office/work wear, i.e. no bermudas, jeans, shorts or sandals.
- Students and Staff are strictly advised not to bring bags. Carry only what you need.
- Staff will collect all handphones on arrival and deposit them at the security counter after security checks at the public lobby.
On the 14th September, was the trip itself. The bus took off at around 2pm and travelled through the KPE tunnel. During the ride, Mr Edmund from SAA told us some interesting facts about MP. He had gotten us engaged by sharing with us the MP’s salary. The pay was around $8000 per month however, the workload is heavy. An MP has to work 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Most importantly, MP has to solve all the problems that the citizens have stated. He also said that, in order to become an MP, an individual has to start off from the most basic role in an organization (eg Grassroot) and work hard to be promoted and recognized.
When we reached the Parliament, we had to go through bag checking counter twice, surrendered our handphones and NRIC in exchange for an entry pass. Before we enter the Parliament room, there was another checkpoint. The whole process is somewhat similar to that of the Airport.
Finally we entered the Parliament room which is located at a higher ground than the actual one. Anyone who enters or leaves the room is obligated to bow to the Speaker of the Parliament. We bowed and sat. The talk had already begun. LCDs were everywhere in the room capturing the image of the current speaker. There were also earphones inside the armrests which allow us to switch from one language to another and these languages were translated by several humans, on spot!
Just a side note: When the Speaker and the Mace are not present, the talk will be nullified. Each seating was allocated to individual MP and Ministers for the convenience of electronic voting.
The topic varied. There were talks about private educations and there were talks about the casino in IR. Each speech lasted for quite long and most of which were too complicated for my understanding. I realized that all the speaking MP has to give statistics to support their point of views and it sounded almost like a debate.
Overall, this trip has been fruitful and an exciting news is that, I had seen Prime Minister Lee! It is such a pity that we couldn’t get a chance to converse with him.
Posted by Genevieve Leng
