I refer to Mr P N Balji's piece "My, My... Mr. Cheng" (July 11-12).

Firstly, I would like to clarify that I did not resign as a reaction to TODAY's reporting, as the

statement "only after a TODAY report highlighted the issue on Wednesday" seems to imply.

As I told TODAY, and as TODAY reported, when I was called on Tuesday night, I was already going to resign;

shortly after, on the same night, I verbally told Mr. Teo Ser Luck, Chairman of Young PAP of my

intention to resign.

Due to the fact that offices were already closed, and also a technical issue about

the exact status of my membership (whether I was a member of the General Branch or of the Teck

Ghee Branch), I was only able to email my resignation the very next morning on Wednesday. This,

including my verbal resignation before the article was printed, was conveyed to TODAY's reporter

the night before Wednesday's report.

Secondly, Mr Balji was right that I sincerely believed, and still do, that being completely upfront to

the Select Committee of my party membership was sufficient. This is because as I was inactive, I was

confident that it will not in any way affect my ability to be impartial, objective and non-partisan. I

have now resigned to remove any residual doubts of this.

Thirdly, I do feel the burden to prove to Singaporeans that my selection was not misplaced, a burden

that I would feel regardless of this issue.

I am however writing most of all, in response to Mr Balji's assertion, that my initial decision to join

the Young PAP out of curiosity, was "cavalier" and on a "whim".

I am curious how curiosity could be construed to be whimsical, and how something which I believe

to be one of the most important faculties of the human intellect, could be seen as cavalier.

I am curious all the time. I am curious because curiosity, to me, is the basis of all human inquiry, the foundation of any quest

to seek knowledge. I am curious because I want to learn new things, to find out things that are

unknown to me, to quench a thirst for new information.

I am curious because I believe that curiosity must form the foundation of education, and it is the one

thing that formal education can sometimes kill, and which Singaporean educators must avoid.

I am curious because it was curiosity that led Ferdinand Magellan to lead the first expedition around

the world, of Albert Einstein to seek to unravel the mysteries of the universe, to inspire the Wright

brothers to ask and answer the question of whether man could fly; it was curiosity that led to

mankind going to the moon. And even if an explorer, a scientist, an inventor or an astronaut I am not,

I hope any child that could still be, would cultivate curiosity in their minds.

I am curious whenever I meet any new person, as he could perhaps become a lifelong friend; getting

to know this person is the only way I can tell. And perhaps as a single man, I hope upon hope that Casanova was right when he said that 'Love is

three quarters curiosity'.

I am curious that Mr Balji does not hold curiosity as a more precious value, especially because in

journalism, it is the yearning to keep questioning that should be the motivation of any good

journalist. The French journalist Anatole France, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921, said

'The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity'. I hope he is right.

When I signed up with the Young PAP out of curiosity, I genuinely wanted to find out more. By no

means was it cavalier, or whimsical; unfortunately, circumstances prevented me from doing so. I am

curious about what may have happened, if they hadn't, but on the other hand it was no bad thing

that I got busy with civic groups instead; civic groups that initial curiosity led to eventual

involvement (with).

It is this same curiosity that I hope I will bring with me to Parliament as a Nominated Member, to

question things as often, and as impartially and objectively as I can.

EM Foster wrote, "The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good

taste, and belief in the human race." Some of my friends would say my taste is suspect, but I

sincerely hope I have the other three.

Copyright 2009 MediaCorp Pte Ltd | All Rights Reserved