Foul!

As published in Malay Mail today     BEING FRANK By Frankie D'Cruz Anonymous whistleblower: Hello, this is John Doe. Interested in data? Newspaper: We’re very interested.   That cryptic message from a source to Munich-based newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, led to a massive data leak implicating the world’s ultra rich who are playing by different rules.   The murky offshore money and transactions linked to a cagey and highly influential Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, provided an insight into global corruption and secrets of the rich and powerful.   So, how did reporters pull off the Panama Papers, the biggest leak in whistleblower history?   Pause. When Daniel Ellsberg photocopied and leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971, those 7,000 pages of top secret Vietnam War documents represented what was then the biggest whistleblower leak in history — a couple dozen megabytes if it were contained in a modern ...

As published in Malay Mail today Being Frank  By Frankie D'Cruz THE Malaysia shirt should be a superhero costume, turning people into extraordinary sportsmen.  Instead, we have a bunch of chronic underachievers who malfunction the moment a football match starts. Yet again, the Malaysian football team has reneged on their duty to the country but then, if the serial losers, their coach Dollah Salleh and the FA of Malaysia think about it, perhaps they will see that they betrayed no one more than themselves. It is collective suicide. In one corner, we have the FAM that has created a farce; its froth is just a stink bomb that keeps on exploding. In the other corner, are our national footballers who have never failed to push back the frontiers of the unacceptable.  In the middle is clown Dollah, a former top striker-turned-worst coach ever. These spoilt lot were left free to do what they liked by their entire hierarchy.  They had no limit, no sense of duty. An...

As published in Malay Mail today Being Frank  By Frankie D'Cruz MERDEKA Stadium looks about 80. But she is not, she is 58. That is not old age, but it is not young either. She deserves to have pride of place in the altar of celebrations as the nation revels in 58 years of independence. But she is all alone, almost in embarrassing anonymity. She looks aged and forgotten while Malaysia, her same age, looks the opposite — riveting. My point? The very spot where Tunku Abdul Rahman stood on the morning of Aug 31, 1957 to declare Malaya’s independence from the British is missing in the towering significance of Merdeka Day cheeriness. The joy is further dampened by the stadium being a victim of historical amnesia. You must agree with me that in the current struggle for national recovery, the stadium which in recent decades fell into disuse, would have been a beneficial venue for inspiration. Turns out it is historical disrespect. Consider: Eight years...

As published in Malay Mail today Being Frank By Frankie D'Cruz BRAND Malaysia is again being portrayed irresponsibly — this time, schoolchildren in Penang have been thrust into political crossfire instead of being taught the values of independence. Barring students from the Merdeka Day parade in Penang is cheap, silly and unkind to them.  Penang’s slogan ‘Bersih, Cekap, Amanah’, (Clean, Fair, Trustworthy) for this year’s state celebrations as opposed to the national theme #sehatisejiwa (One Heart, One Soul) was pointless.  The nation must stand as one. It is the biggest national event and political differences must be cast aside. However, both the Education Ministry and the state government seem to be at a loss over how to inspire a national day party. They are clearly clueless over how to motivate children to be proud of the nation and respect the great leaps Malaysia has made since independence. They have no idea of the poetry of togetherness and...

As published in Malay Mail today BEING FRANK By Frankie D'Cruz AS a light rail transit (LRT) commuter, you kind of hang your head when your regular mode of public transport becomes a safety issue.  You despair knowing five brake failures since February, two last week, had occurred and that the operator, Prasarana Malaysia Berhad, has been having problems getting the train and brake manufacturers to deal with the problem. Still, that’s your only way around and the potential danger sinks in when you board the four-car trains. Imagine being told you will likely suffer a heart attack, yet not how big or how serious it will be. The brake failure problem had been highlighted since February by Prasarana to the train and brake manufacturers with no effect.  It has been simply put down to a design issue by Canadian train company Bombardier and the German braking system manufacturer Knorr-Bremse AG.  No manufacturer would want a tragedy on their hand, but complacen...

As published in Malay Mail today. BEING FRANK By Frankie D'Cruz IT's annoying isn’t it when the authorities don’t tell you what’s going on in your city? There are ugly, self-defeating, barricades on key streets in the Golden Triangle ahead of a street car race early August — and we will all get lost in the city soon. Weep all you want, now that Kuala Lumpur has been transformed into a dreary, unfashionable and undesirable capital city. The spirit of city life has vanished since the set up for the KL Grand Prix began two weeks ago. No one is saying what sort of research went into holding the event in the heart of KL. What we know is City Hall chose not to hear views from the public, business community and public transport operators. Few knew about the grand prix until four days ago when people vented their frustration to Malay Mail over the disruption to traffic and inconvenience caused to pedestrians. Yesterday, City Hall urban transportation department deputy dir...

As published in Malay Mail (June 13, 2015)     By Frankie D'Cruz frankie@mmail.com.my   IT was a remarkable ‘newsroom’ filled with some of the biggest names in journalism, super rich with collectively hundreds of years of experience. With sacks of skills, these journalists told thousands of great stories, wrote thousands of headlines and made The Malay Mail your lunch companion.   These heady editors, sub-editors and reporters had a magical knack of knowing what Malaysians were thinking, and this sharpness made them some of the best journalists the country has seen. All their gifts came together in irresistible abundance in a breathless recent catch-up of 18 ex-Mailers, from the late 70s and 80s, with former editor Chua Huck Cheng — now happily retired — who was on a visit here from New Zealand.    It was pure theatre. A convivial June 5, Friday evening had emerged at Pietro Ristorante Italiano in Damansara. Wine and stories flowed. ...

As published in Malay Mail today Being Frank By Frankie D'Cruz THE discovery of mass graves and abandoned migrant ‘prison’ camps in Perlis is the most brutal chapter in the flight of the oppressed to Malaysia.  No one knows how they died but it points to the barbarism of people smugglers and inaction by Asean nations to counter trafficking. It pains our hearts that there were many horror jungle camps that held migrants who had fled persecution in Myanmar and Bangladesh.  We will never know if those in the graves were victims of mass slaughter by traffickers, starvation or illness, but it certainly is man’s inhumanity to man.  This is more proof that our region has plummeted to new depths of monstrosity. How did we allow the mass killings to happen on our soil? It reeks of incompetence and Myanmar, Bangladesh and Malaysia must get the answers.  We are told the authorities were aware of smugglers’ camps five years ago, but how could it...

As published in Malay Mail today By Frankie D'Cruz SO inflammatory is the Rohingya issue that Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticised for failing to raise it. Why the Nobel Peace Laureate won’t say the word “Rohingya” is beyond grasp. This human rights defender wrote an article in early 2012 titled Word power: “Words allow us to express our feelings, to record our experiences, to concretise our ideas, to push outwards the frontiers of intellectual exploration. “Words can move hearts, words can change perceptions. “Words can set nations and peoples in powerful motion. “Words are an essential part of the expression of our humanness. “To curb and shackle freedom of speech and expression is to cripple the basic right to realise our full potential as human beings.” Brian Pellot, writing for Religion News Service, asked in an article last year: “This word, ‘Rohingya’, clearly has power. So why won’t Suu Kyi use it?” A political analyst with ...

As published in Malay Mail today Comment by Frankie D’Cruz frankie@mmail.com.my SAY that again: Jokes should not cause excessive laughter? Comedy Court pair Allan Perera and Indi Nadarajah, whose trademark searing social and political satire gets us laughing out loud, might soon be out of work. As would other comedians. Wait: There’s to be gender segregation at concerts. If one took his daughter to a concert, she would have to sit in another row. No father will accompany his child to a performance again. Brand Malaysia is being systematically destroyed. The new guidelines by the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) do not raise national happiness. The updated rules are a dent to closeness. We are supposed to create awareness of love and affection for Malaysia to remind the people the importance of uniting, but siege mindset seems to rule. Let’s just zero in on laughter and who better to comment on it than Perera: “Must Malays...

Being Frank by Frankie D'Cruz, as published in Malay Mail today. AIMING for goal, the Land Public Transport Commission has hit the crossbar. The sudden and sharp increase in public transport fares is so out of touch, it’s untrue about the impact of government austerity measures on consumers. In probably the most depressing story of the week, the commission (SPAD) unleashed a triple whammy on the same day by sanctioning steep increases in budget taxi, express bus and commuter train fares. One thing’s for sure: The people get overrun and this sort of price hike frenzy will help no one. In what other society would such wide scale failure be tolerated? Failure - because Malaysian policy makers seem to have lost touch with the man on the street. Consider the whole issue that is becoming increasingly radioactive: The fare increases come before and after the implementation of the poorly explained goods and services tax (GST) on April 1. It wasn’t sensible of SPAD to anno...

Being Frank by Frankie D’Cruz, as published in Malay Mail today. IF you’re looking to understand a political leader so out of touch with his party, I’ve got one for you: G. Palanivel.  For one who started the crisis in the MIC and seems unable to stop it from reeling out of control, the party president has indulged in trigger-happy behaviour. This “quiet” man has gone ballistic. Step by insidious step, he’s on a sacking spree of dissenting members and on Monday kicked his gaffe machine into high gear by going on a collision course with Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak. Palanivel does not want a non-Indian BN secretariat to steer the administration of the MIC until fresh party polls. He said it was a grave act of injustice to let third parties (BN) “to run our beloved party”.  “The deputy president (Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam) may be willing to allow third parties to run MIC and lose our self dignity ...

As published in Malay Mail today. Words by Frankie D’Cruz frankie@mmail.com.my 2014 was dreadful. It was horrible. It stank. It epitomises the utter array of horror. We did not know how to solve problems. We had crises. We fixed some. We allowed some to fester. Perhaps, there were some upsides. I am trying to think of what they were. Always, the bad seemed to crowd out the good. Maybe the good news was that our eyes were opened, at least a little bit. But what we saw was downright depressing. We wanted 2014 to end soon enough. 2015 will surely have plenty of bad news in it. That 2014 could have been worse should offer some hope. ‘Smart’ people predicted a lot of even-more-terrible things in 2014 that never came to pass. That might feel like a low bar. But these ‘averted’ catastrophes point toward some interesting ways to be optimistic about 2015. Unless, of course, someone wants to carry the misfortune into 2015. ...

As published in Malay Mail today. Being Frank By Frankie D'Cruz THE eight-month torture of 23-year-old Indonesian house help, Meriance Kabu, who was starved, stomped on, had her teeth pulled out savagely and endured sharp objects struck in her private part by her lesbian employers continues to reveal attitudes of astounding ingratitude on our part. Every Malaysian has to take responsibility for such barbarism. If Meriance’s case was black-hearted, isn’t it similar to many of us trampling on foreign workers daily? The crime may not be the same, but isn’t it criminal of us to run over those who ease our domestic and service-oriented burdens? Meriance’s abuse comes amid a stalemate between Malaysia and Indonesia involving domestic help, whom we should rightly call extended family members. Again we have not convinced our neighbour that the safety of their citizens working here can be assured. Although Indonesia shares very much the same cultural multiplicity as ours, w...