Mr Phay started volunteering with NSP in 2011. Mr Ng was his teacher when he was a student in North Vista Secondary School, and was a “very cool” teacher, he shared.
As a financial consultant, Mr Phay meets Singaporeans of all walks of life. “And from there, I can really see who are the people who fall through the cracks. That is the reason why after so long being a volunteer in NSP, I decided to step up and step into politics,” he told journalists on Sunday.
Stepping into the limelight was “not an easy decision” because potential candidates are often under a lot of scrutiny, he added.
Standing for election with an opposition party “does not mean that you’re going against the ruling party”, said Mr Phay, who turns 33 on Polling Day on May 3.
“It’s about helping the ruling party – focusing, diverting their attention to where they have missed out,” he added.
“We would like to stand beside the ruling party to help them understand what fellow Singaporeans are facing.”
Mr Phay is a young father, and it took him and his wife three to four months to secure a slot in infantcare for their son, he shared, adding that he wants to champion policies supporting the early childhood sector.
“The kind of anxiety that we have is something that you cannot understand unless you’re going through that,” he said. “Is my wife going to quit her job if we can’t find an infantcare slot? Am I going to quit my job?”
Through his job, he has also realised that many Singaporeans do not have a basic understanding of their finances, said Mr Phay.
“I would like to propose that we can have elective modules for financial literacy in upper secondary. That’s how we can help Singaporeans to get out of the situation that they’re in, get out of the low-income range and move onto the middle-income,” he added.
VERINA ONG
