In the second case, Mrs Teo said that a resident, Madam A, attended a session in January at Upper Boon Keng with a young woman, M, who claimed to be her daughter.
The pair requested financial assistance, with M saying that she needed to accompany Mdm A, who could not speak for herself.
When the pair informed MPS volunteers that they had a “confidential matter to raise directly” with Mrs Teo, the minister said she “wrapped up another conversation to attend to them immediately”.
“Around then, M opened a notebook containing several documents and passed a three-page typed statement to Mdm A. Looking slightly unsure, Mdm A nevertheless proceeded to recite the statement,” said Mrs Teo.
“It soon became clear that the pair were not mother and daughter, and that the contents were unrelated to the financial assistance they had initially claimed to be seeking.” Mrs Teo did not reveal what the statement contained.
She said: “In fact, my volunteers and I have been supporting Mdm A for some time, including providing monthly groceries and weekly food rations. To respect her privacy, we did not question how there was suddenly a ‘daughter’ accompanying her to MPS.”
Mdm A, who aspired to become a religious teacher a few years ago, was referred by Mrs Teo and the volunteers to a relevant organisation which offered financial assistance for her studies, she shared.
“To this day, my volunteers and I continue to support Mdm A by delivering her weekly rations,” said Mrs Teo.
“During a ration distribution not long after the incident, she told us that her youngest son has qualified for a government scheme supporting his education, and that she does not require other forms of financial assistance.
“In the last month alone, I have seen Mdm A at least twice at our constituency events where donations were shared with residents.”
VOLUNTEERS AFFECTED BY “AMBUSH”
Mrs Teo said that her volunteers were “perturbed and saddened by such incidents”, especially when they responded to those at the sessions with “sincere intent, never expecting to be led to an ‘ambush'”.
“Such incidents affect my volunteers and our sense of safety as we carry out our duties. It becomes hard to let our guard down when we do not know if we might be treated with hostility, called names (like ‘coward’ in Min Shan’s case), or be secretly recorded and featured in articles designed to paint us in a bad light,” she said.
“I also appreciate that residents may raise broader concerns about Singapore, besides their own issues. They do so in the hope that we will reflect their views to government and not as a way to publicly pressurise it into submission.
“While my volunteers and I will do our best to bounce back from such incidents, I am saddened that, in my nearly two decades as an MP, the tone of MPS seems to have shifted because of episodes like these.”
She added that she hopes MPS returns to “their truest purpose”, as the sessions are not “protest platforms, but a channel for MPs to engage their residents openly and attend to their most acute needs”.
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