RDU Holland-Bukit Timah

22/05/2026

17/05/2026

Those of us who've played older video games know what God mode really means.

It's the cheat code that makes you invincible. No damage. Infinite resources. Unstoppable. You walk through enemies like they're not even there—because in God mode, they aren't. They're NPCs: non-player characters following a script, incapable of changing the outcome. The game isn't a challenge anymore. It's a formality.

That's the People's Action Party in Singapore. God mode enabled for 60 years. And the rest of us? We're cast as the NPCs.

Look at what one side controls. The narrative. The laws. The economy. The bureaucracy. The media. Electoral rules. Public fear. Access to opportunity. Even what counts as "realistic."

They decide when elections happen. They redraw boundaries to erase threats. Competition isn't a fight—it's a formality they permit.

In such a scenario, all other political parties become NPCs. Even the ones with seats. Especially the ones with seats—because now they can bleed you through the courts for town council failures, prosecute your leader when one MP misspeaks, flip your own former colleagues to testify you're criminals. The seats aren't victories. They're hostages. Play your scripted role as "responsible opposition" or watch everything burn. That's not democracy. That's a leash with parliamentary privileges.

It is in this context that you must read today's ST article which talks about Red Dot United, Singapore Democratic Party and Progress Singapore Party. No other political parties were mentioned, presumably because they do not have the people's mindshare. On the surface it reads like "these are the most relevant parties outside the two that are in Parliament"—but look closer at the framing. We are caricatured as needing to "deconflict" with each other over territory, as if we are each other's opponents.

For any serious reader who reads between the lines, the subtext is clear: opposition parties fragment, compete, and "jostle for attention" while the PAP governs. We're measured not by whether our policies are credible or our ground game is strong, but by survival metrics—volunteer counts, geographic reach, whether we're still relevant a year after losing. The article doesn't ask if RDU's 50% volunteer growth signals momentum, or if our initiative, Altgovsg's shadow ministries represent genuine policy capacity.

Instead it asks if we're fading. Because in God mode, that's what opposition parties are supposed to do between elections: fade, fragment, and eventually disappear.

I know that gods cannot be defeated by mere mortals. This is why we have stopped playing defense since GE 2025. We have shifted to a bigger office space. Decentralised our ground work and are covering more constituencies than we contested in the last GE. We want to expand to the central and east too. If the GE is called tomorrow, we are ready to field more candidates than we fielded in the last GE. We are mirroring Government Ministries with our AltGovSG work. We are trying to work across party lines with PSP and SDP.

Of course some will ridicule what we are doing and say we are pretending, or that we are doing cosplay. Let them say what they may.

But the truth is we are rising. Rising to God mode—not by asking permission, but by becoming unstoppable. Matching their relentlessness. Rejecting their boundaries. Building infrastructure they can't ignore.

That's how mortals become gods. And their cheat code? It's breaking.

The fact is, monopolies fall to competitors who move faster and refuse to stop. The PAP runs on legacy infrastructure—60-year-old code, bloated, unrefactored, paying themselves the highest salaries in the world to maintain a system built in 1965.

RDU runs on hunger.

They have resources. We have velocity. They're on autopilot, collecting million-dollar paychecks. We're shipping daily with volunteers who pay their own transport.

God mode vs. God mode. Except theirs is running on a 60-year-old build maintained by the world's most expensive devs. Ours is bleeding edge, built by people who believe.

They have everything to protect. We have nothing to lose—and that makes us unstoppable.

10/05/2026

Yesterday, Emily Woo, myself and our RDU West team visited a block of rental flats in Senja Road, in Holland–Bukit Timah GRC. Many of the residents are older Singaporeans, living in small units, with health problems and very little income.

Many shared with us their hopes, struggles and aspirations, but one story stayed with me. The story of a 68-year-old Chinese man – a taxi driver who is bankrupt. He went for spine surgery about a year ago, but could not stay home long enough to recover properly. He is still in a lot of pain because he has to sit for long hours to do his job, even if it is only part-time. He has to wear a bandage on his lower back, but it does not help much to ease the pain. He has to work to pay rent for the taxi, and also because he has to pay rent to HDB, which had increased from $59 to $99 recently. He was worried that if he earned even a little more, HDB would ask him to pay $165.

I did not understand this. Really I don't.

What kind of a system expects a 68-year-old man to work till he drops?

His story reminded me of another story I read in the papers, which happened a few blocks away near Blk 647B Senja Close, just about a week ago. A 69‑year‑old amputee died after a garbage truck hit him while he was collecting recyclables near the rubbish point at the block. He had lost his right leg and moved around in a wheelchair. People in the area said he was often seen there collecting cans and bottles from the bins.

When I read that news, I remember thinking: was it the garbage truck that killed him, or was it poverty? Poverty that meant he had to work, and work collecting rubbish, at the age of almost 70. Don’t tell me he was collecting recyclables “just to exercise”.

What kind of a system drives the old, the sick and the most vulnerable to this extent?

These are not people who coasted. They are the generation that worked when wages were low, CPF was thin, and there was no Workfare or Progressive Wage to top up their incomes. They built today’s Singapore, but they are now growing old in a high‑cost city on a low‑support floor. Food, utilities, medical bills and basic necessities are priced like a rich country. Their protection is still designed like we are a poorer one.

If my party and I had our way, support for the 68-year-old part-time taxi driver we met – the senior citizen who is suffering from a spine injury – would stop being a razor-thin token.

This is why, in Red Dot United’s Shadow Budget 2026, we proposed at least $500 every month for the poorest 30% of seniors, and $700 for those who make it past 80 in small flats with almost no CPF left. We have to admit that the system has underpaid them all their lives. That way, they could work if they wanted to – really to exercise, or to pass time – but not because the system requires them to break their bodies as a sacrifice to keep the wheels churning.

I will talk about the other people we spoke to yesterday at another time. But this story consumes me at the moment. I don’t believe it is right that we treat our seniors this way.

What do you think?

14/09/2025

14/09/2025

Team RDU on a Sunday morning.

27/07/2025

13/05/2025