Pleasure Too Soon

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For those who never knew that there was a brothel in Brunei way back when, so now you will know.

Introducing Papa Soon, then 57 year old, who was in the year 2000, charged with operating / managing a short-lived brothel (5-16 January 2000) at Kg Manggis Satu, Jalan Muara where 5 foreign ladies (from Indonesia and Thailand, ages 22-36) offering sex services were headquartered. The brothel was uncovered during a raid by the Immigration Department, codenamed “Operation Coming Soon”

In the house, the Johns will enjoy some drinks, karaoke, chit chats and later sex with the ladies. The ladies will get a $5 commission for every drink sold and Papa Soon will take half of the proceeds from the sex. For $150, the men can take the ladies home for the sex part of the service.

In court, Papa Soon pleaded not guilty and represented himself, cross-examining the girls when they testified against him. Papa Soon said that he was framed and that the girls accused him of forcing them to be prostitutes in order to get lighter sentences. In June 2000, Papa Soon was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment. Seven months later, in January 2001, his sentence was reduced to 3 years and 6 months following his appeal. He dodged the rattan as he was above 50 years of age.

The funny thing was, despite the sensational Papa Soon case, years later, in 2013, there was another attempt to run a brothel in the country, this time in STKRJ Kg Sungai Buloh, when a local man allowed his house to be rented by Indonesian prostitutes (for $10 per gig) to conduct their business transextions. The man was later convicted and sent to jail for 6 months. This case created less buzz because the prostitutes were freelancers and that the man was not involved in pimping them out.

No further (known) brothel attempts after that (at least not until Oct this year), but this did not stop prostitutes to make a living here. From Indonesians and Thais, prostitutes from Vietnam and China began to take interest in the Brunei market. They would now skip involving locals in their business model, came to the country on a tourist or visitor visa, stayed at cheap hotels ($30-$40 a night), used their fellow country-mates as their pro-bono marketing executives, charged $100 or so for sex per session (enough to cover the room’s rent).

What worst could happen anyway. Get away with it, they will make a good sum of money. If they got busted, they will spend some time in jail then return home. No biggie.

In Oct this year, two Thai siblings were jailed for hosting prostitution services at their rented house from Feb to Mar 2019. During the period, they had “taken in 11 Thai women aged between 35 and 43 at their rented house in Kg Kianggeh and that they had pimped the women for prostitution”. Sounds like running a brothel to me. There was no reference to the word “brothel” this time around hencewhy the activity and arrest managed to slip through the public attention. The Thai lady was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months imprisonment while her brother received 21 months.

Now, lets do the math. One prostitute can entertain up to 12 men per day, meaning she can earn 12x$100 = $1,200 daily. We have 11 prostitutes, meaning we are talking about 11x$1,200 = $13,200 worth of sex profits per day. Now, multiply that by say 50 days of transextions = $660,000. For use of their house, the siblings may charge a minimum of 10% of that = $66,000. These money will be remitted to their home country on a daily basis. Knowing how busy body the country’s population is, Im sure they knew well that their “business” would be short-lived. But, then again, like I said…what worst could happen anyway.

 

Fourth Industrial What Again??

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Everyday we hear about the Fourth Industrial Revolution or 4IR or Industry 4.0 as a thing of “tomorrow”. But I wonder if we really understand what 4IR is all about. People talked about it, but what pictures about this future 4IR world that were in their minds. We are asked to be prepared for it, but be prepared for what exactly? and how? For Brunei, are we in the right juncture of necessity and time to occupy our minds with 4IR worries and anticipations?

Im assuming that the first things in their minds would be automation, artificial intelligence and robots. Robots will replace humans for doing many jobs. This is actually a very possible future or may well be the destined future. The thought of robots doing things that are currently done by humans makes a lot of sense. For any bosses, it is never easy to deal with humans. So, with robots, all the human-linked issues will disappear – laziness  and incompetencies especially. The workers will work like clockwork throughout the work hours – no canteen break, no absence during office time to do school runs, bringing kids to the clinic, bringing their cars for servicing or repair, going to funeral, and all the other fancy excuses. The robots will have all the knowledge and of course they can speak many languages. Imagine Robocops, Robosurgeon, Robomaids, Robolawnmowers – they will be godsends to our comfort of living. If this scenario is what the 4IR enthusiasts right now are talking about, what kind of “preparations” would they be referring to?? As much as we are excited about having these robots in our lives, seriously though, it will take perhaps another 20-30 years, even longer, before robots become part of the workforce and everyday life.

In fact, it is really disappointing that some of these technologies imagined decades ago are not here yet. Flying cars for example. The Jetsons cartoon series first aired in 1962 depicted a future world where people have robots as maids and travel using aerocars. More than 50 years on, there are still no robot maids and no flying cars. The 2004 movie I, Robot was set in a future world some 30 years away (in 2035) where there are robots among humans, flying cars and also self-driving cars through fancy tunnels. Well, 2035 is now just 16 years away. Is it enough time to catch up with the movie’s 2035 scenario. I don’t think so, at least for Brunei it is still far fetched. Although I must acknowledge here Elon Musk’s car-flinging tunnel which he unveiled in 2018 looks very promising.

So lets take it down a notch. Perhaps they are talking about the Internet of Things or IoTs where all devices are connected to the internet and are communicating with each other. Already today we see in Brunei some of these devices – the smart phones, smart watches, smart TVs, smart light bulbs and smart security cameras. For the public, perhaps one manifestation of this would be smart homes, and smart cities for governments.

Well, there are already many smart homes in the US and other super advanced countries. For Brunei, the smart homes concept has already made its way, largely thanks to Amazon Alexa launched in 2014. I would say, specifically, 2018 is the year when smart homes caught the attention of the population. That year, Fabular debut its smart home model. Its a tiny two bedroom unit, very modern looking, quite affordable. It is installed with Amazon’s Alexa software which will allow the homeowners to use voice command or their smart phones to communicate to Alexa to operate or control all the devices with internet connection at the home. The said devices offered by the Fabular unit are the security system (smart CCTVs and smart door locks), entertainment system (smart TVs), lightings (smart bulbs) and the temperature (smart air conditioners). Sounds so cool and very futuristic, but the unit is so tiny, definitely not for big families or the claustrophobics.

The good news is, Fabular units aside, homeowners can actually transform their houses into smart homes, right now. I have myself been face to face with Alexa, chatted with her, she even shared some jokes (AI jokes are lame though) and played trivia (also lame). I said Alexa switch on the light and the light came on. This was at my relative’s house. Experiencing this myself I was totally bought. The Alexa hardware is affordable, ranging from $70 to about $200 depending on the size. Then just get some smart devices and connect her to them, now you’re in a smart home, just sit back, relax and enjoy. But, there is a “but” though, two buts actually. But what happens when there is no internet connection?? and But what happens when your Alexa got hacked?? Imagine, hackers mess with your light, making them flickering on and off, driving you insane. Or hackers unlock your smart door lock. These scenarios are very much real in Brunei. There are areas in Brunei with no or very poor 3G/4G coverage. The people living there can forget about having smart homes for now. So the next time someone mentioned about 4IR and the need to “be prepared” for it, it means that the providers of the supporting infrastructure – internet coverage, speed, cybersecurity, etc –  must do more and move at a faster pace than what and how they are doing it now.

As for the need for re-skilling and up-skilling in preparation of the future 4IR labour market dynamics, I think it is premature to make a hoo-ha about it now, at least for Brunei, where the jobs and the corresponding skill requirements are expected to remain the same for the next decade or so. In terms of the need for education reform, people just talk about it being important, but with regard to the 4IR preparation, it is still an uncharted territory with many not having any clue yet how the needed “reform” will take shape.

So, while 4IR is the hip topic to talk about and to raise today, I just don’t see any concrete action going on beyond the talk. Instead of fixating their eyes looking through the telescope at the things far away in the future, why not focus and deal first with the things that are now right under our noses – unemployment, economic diversification, inefficiencies, etc.

Just saying…

A Taste of Terror

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For a small country like Brunei, security is everything. It doesn’t matter if major threats to the people’s wellbeing do not exist (yet), complacency has proven to bring dire circumstances. Don’t ever think that the things that happened in other countries won’t happen in Brunei. The longer we drag our feet on tackling security lacks or lack of preparedness, the harder we will fall to our knees when brought face to face with real terror.

In 2011, a combination of three ticking timebombs exploded at the same time, awakening the sleeping Bruneians, bringing the security enforcement personnel on their toes, running around like headless chicken, two with bloodied faces. All these were triggered by one man – Yusup @ Malik Gerhana.

Malik Gerhana was one of the about 120,000 foreign workers in Brunei. Looking at the figure, 120,000 doesn’t sound that many if compared to neighbouring Malaysia who has about 2 millions foreign workers. However, if we do the maths, the foreign workers in Malaysia only make up only 6% of the country’s population, while in Brunei, they make up a whooping 28% of the country’s tiny population. These foreign workers provide the skills that Bruneians don’t have or fill the positions that Bruneians are too lazy or too proud to do. I don’t see this dynamics will change anytime soon. [Ticking timebomb No.1].

While not dismissing their contributions to the country’s human resource needs, these foreign workers came from countries that existed way longer than Brunei, countries that have seen and experienced it all – extreme poverty, street protests, demonstrations, separatism, gangsterism, all kinds of crimes. Because of this, they are more “battle hardened” and have different life skills and psyche than you and me Bruneians. This has nothing to do with race, just mere facts of developments. As the number of foreign workers swelled, it was just a matter of time before one bad apple exported daring crime acts into the country.

Meet Malik Gerhana from Lombok, known in his hometown as Yusup or Usup, the gangster who came to Brunei as a foreign worker. On 20 April 2011, Malik, together with his 6 fellow Indonesians, later referred as the Usop Gang, armed with machetes, committed a gang robbery on a house at Kg Sungai Teraban in Kuala Belait. Well, before this, we did have armed gang robberies. What were bonkers about the Usop Gang robbery were that they had no intention to sneak in like a cat burglar, quietly pick a door lock, saw the security grille or pry open a window like other housebreakers. They chose the noisiest way there was – break down the door using a gas cylinder then forced the occupants at parang-point to surrender their valuables including the keys to their cars. They took best care to conceal their identity by wearing masks and gloves, but their accent gave away their nationality. They were in and out in just in a matter of minutes, leaving the victims badly shaken but lucky to be alive.

By morning, thanks to WhatsApp, everyone was alerted about the incident. The police conducted roadblocks looking for the suspects but by that time enough time had passed that they could have been long gone across the border. Kg Sungai Teraban, where the robbery occurred is only less than 10 km away from the border with Sarawak. The Sungai Tujoh border post opens at 0600 am, they could have crossed the border like other innocent border crossers well before the border post people got the alert. There are also convenient mousetrails that they can use which would only take them about 5 hours walking across, by vehicle even faster. [Ticking timebomb No.2].

Mousetrails or jalan tikus are clandestine routes to enter and exit the country by land. There are many of them out there. No passport needed, no custom inspection. A number of them can even be used by vehicles, calling them mousetrails is an understatement. These trails can even be seen on google earth. They are used by smugglers, fugitives, villagers visiting their relatives or going to kedai runcit over the border, and god knows who else. With the existence of the mousetrails, coming in and out of the country undetected is notoriously easy and there is no way of knowing who have slipped through and are now hiding or lurking in our homeland.

Im sure that the police knew well that their roadblocks and hunts were just gonna find dust as the robbers might have already crossed the border to Miri. So they alerted the Malaysian police to be on a look out for the criminals. Given that the robbers wore masks and gloves, im assuming that the police didn’t have much to go on with except for the obvious clue – 7 guilty looking Indonesian men with robbery loot in their possession. The Malaysian police did find and apprehend them on 22 April 2011, two days after the robbery, as they tried to cross over from Sarawak to Kalimantan, Indonesia. Why they were sticking together, all 7 travelling in one van is beyond me. They were handed to the Brunei police who announced the arrests in a press conference much to the relief of the nervous public. The public could then sleep peacefully at night. Or could they??

MG

It was later revealed that 3 out of 7 of them have been involved in a series of robberies in the country in 2010 whereby that year, 6 robberies were reported. It was unclear how many of the 6 that they were involved in and if Malik Gerhana was one of the 3 mentioned. The 7 were then brought to court on 25 April 2011 where a court date for second hearing was set for 9 May 2011. On 9 May 2011, only 6 of them turned up. Just like a plot twist in an action movie, Malik Gerhana managed to escape!

At the early morning of 9 May 2011, around 0520 am, Malik Gerhana beat the crap out of two CID personnel, ninja-ed his way out of the CID HQ at Jalan Ong Sum Ping and ran off never to be seen again (at least by the Brunei police). He was wearing the orange detainee suit which could have some bloodstains on them. Here is what I think he did next. Firstly, he must get out of the orange suit. Since it was still dawn and he was at Bandar area, there couldn’t possibly be any laundry hanging outside that he could conveniently snatch and he has no phone to call his friends for assistance. I believe he took off the suit and in the darkness, in just his underwear, jumped into the Brunei river at Kg Ayer, swam across to Sungai Kebun, and from there made his way to the closest mousetrail and crossed the border to Limbang. He couldve reached Limbang well before the news about his escape was circulated on WhatsApp. Well, it may not happen that way, but my theory sounds more consistent with the action movie-ish ring of the whole saga.

The 6 friends he left behind were later charged and sentenced to different jail terms and strokes of the cane. One got 13 years and 12 strokes. He could be the main perpetrator, the mastermind. 3 got 9 years and also 12 strokes. One got 5 years and 4 months and 3 strokes. One got 16 months. Im assuming that the last person was not involved in assaulting the house occupants thus didn’t get the stroke of the cane. Fast forward to 2019, 2 of them should be out of jail already.

What then happened to Malik Gerhana? Two weeks after his escape, he was listed in the Interpol’s Red Notice. It was not until 2017 that we heard about him again. Apparently, he went back to Lombok, got involved in an international drug smuggling ring, and was arrested in January 2017 by the Indonesian police as he was waiting at the airport for a drug mule from Malaysia to arrive with his meth consignment. He is now in the Indonesian prison. Or is he??

So what was the third ticking timebomb? I guess im gonna leave it unspoken…

Missing in the Jungle

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It must be heartbreaking for families and friends of missing people who were never found, not knowing what happened to them. In Brunei, two cases of people went missing in the forest still remain a mystery until this day.

In 2014, a local cartoonist, 47 year old Mohd Arif Haji Abd Hamid, known by his pen name Abang Jit Manis went to the Teraja Forest in Labi, Belait District and never seen again. Then, in 2018, a 72 year old retired teacher, Pg Haji Damit bin Pg Hj Ahmad, never came home. He was last seen at his orchard farm in the Kampong Menengah-Bukit Sulang Area in Mukim Lamunin, Tutong District on 07 April 2018.

There are a number of possibilities of what could have happened to them. The first thing that needs to be looked at in any missing person case is their state of mind during the days and hours leading up to the time when they are found missing – whether they’ve  dropped any clues that they were not happy with their lives, wanting to get away from an unhappy marriage, or overwhelmed with debts.

The possibility of the person voluntarily missing should be ruled out first before embarking into massive and futile search operation in the jungle. Missing in the forest could be a ruse to run away and start a new life without having to explain and face their families and friends whom they irresponsibly left behind. But Brunei is so small, running away this way would mean that the person would have to leave the country through illegally crossing the border to Malaysia.

So what do we know about the two missing persons. Abang Jit Manis is quite well known.  He was actively posting in his Facebook account, he also actively contributed articles in papers and magazines, he likes photography and has a fascination with nature especially the beauty of the virgin forests and their lakes and waterfalls. Behind the facade of his lively cartoons, writings and digital footprint, people who have met Abang Jit Manis in person described him as a quiet person. It was rumoured that at the time before he disappeared he had met someone, an Iban girl from Labi. The girl, however, is already married (Red flag?).

Unlike Abang Jit Manis, Pg Haji Damit has no digital footprint apart from the online articles about him being missing. Of course there is nothing wrong about this given his age. I don’t expect him, being 72, to have a Facebook account. But as in other pensioners in the Tutong District, he is well known especially to the people of Lamunin. He shared the same favourite pastime as other senior citizens in the Mukim, which is managing orchards. Dusun buah-buahan as they called it. Pg Haji Damit has his own orchard farm which he maintained with the help of two Indonesian workers whom he employed. He must be doing great financially if he can afford to employ two workers. Because of this, rumours have emerged that the married with kids Pg Hj Damit has been preyed upon by a foreign worker lady (Red flag?).

Lets say that the two missing persons did not voluntarily gone missing. The other possibility would be that they got lost in the jungle, a possibility which I think can be quickly dismissed. Both are familiar with the respective area that they were last seen at. Abang Jit Manis frequented the Labi area allegedly having discreet rendezvous with the said girl. While Pg Haji Damit knew his orchard like the back of his hand. Furthermore, the GRU’s sniffer dogs, which were involved in the search operations, are extremely well trained and would have been able to track them down in the jungle, whether they were alive or dead.

If they did not voluntarily go missing and did not get lost in the jungle, that would leave us with the possibility of foul play which may involve the victims being moved, whether kidnapped or murdered, to a secondary crime scene away from the searched area. This is a scary possibility to go with, but rightfully, there should not be any rock left unturned.

The lack of missing people posters and publicity would mean that as the years passed by, the cases would soon be forgotten and the families are forced to settle with the idea that their missing loved ones could be dead or have stumbled upon a supernatural parallel universe and don’t want to leave or couldn’t find their way out.

One thing for sure, someone somewhere out there knew something. How about the Labi girl that Abang Jit Manis has been seeing? She must knew something. The two Indonesian foreign workers who were at the orchard with Pg Haji Damit the day he disappeared. They must knew something. Perhaps, offering financial reward for information could help someone break their silence.

Whatever fate that befell them, it is hoped that the mystery surrounding their disappearances can be solved so that their families can have closure and move on with their lives.

Update [Nov 2019]: Pg Hj Damit has been located. Is he alive? YES. Was he voluntarily missing? YES. The amount of efforts, the manpower involved, the days spent looking for him, the anguish his family went through, were pointless because of this. Did he leave the country? YES. This raised a couple of questions… did the police and his family members even check if his passport was missing too? Did they even immediately get the airport and land border posts officials to be alert should his passport is used? BEATS ME. Did his two Indonesian workers know something? YES. Should the public be informed that he was found? DEFINITELY YES. Anyways, Im glad that he is still alive and I’m sure his family is relieved too about that. Turned out that he went to Indonesia and YES he brought his passport along. Wak…wak…waaak.

Growing up in the 70s

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Information on google said that one can recall events from age 3 to 4 years old. For me, I don’t actually remember a lot. But a few moments that happened in the 1970s that I specifically remember clearly being there and experiencing them, after I was born of course.

One that keeps on replaying in my mind is the moment when my brother was born. It was in 1978 when I was just 6 years old. Like myself and the rest of my siblings, my brother was born at home. There was nothing in my memory about me noticing, being curious or asking my mom about her pregnant belly. So when one day, my mom and this stranger lady entered the room and locked the door I was so curious about what were they doing in there. I distinctly remember peeking through the crack under the door but I couldn’t see anything. Turned out that my mom had a baby. I don’t remember being excited about it, although thinking about it now I am really glad that I have a baby brother.

The other thing that I can recall clearly is waiting for my dad to get home from work. My dad worked at the Belait district. So he would leave for work very early in the morning and only got home late in the afternoon. The road to Belait was only one lane back then making the commute slower and more daunting. My dad’s first car was Datsun 120Y by the way. Me and my sister, who is 16 months older than me, would excitedly wait at the porch. Everytime my dad got home, he would sit on the sofa at the porch, took off his shoes, then we would pull out his socks for him.

There are a lot of memories from school. Me and my siblings went to the same primary school, Sekolah Rendah Sinaut. The school was very close to our house, just a minute walk away. Unfortunately, I don’t remember my first day at school. I should be 5 years old when I started Darjah 1. But I do remember joining my parents sending my sister to her first day of school the year before when I was 4. I remember that day I was crying because I wanted to go to school too. Had I known that school was hell, I wouldn’t bother crying.

Something amusing which happened that I remember very clearly when I was about 6 or 7 years old. It never failed to make me smile everytime I think about it. The school canteen started selling the Nutella mini packs for 50cents each. It was definitely out of my budget at that time which was only 20cents per day. I remember being so curious and wanting to taste it so much. So my solution was to walk home and ask for 30cents from my mom. When I got home, not only that my mom scolded me for not being at school, she also didn’t give me the 30cents that I cutely requested for. I disappointedly ran back to school and was about to cross the road when my mom changed her mind and called me back to get the 30cents. She was afraid that I would get run over by cars because of “kepunan“. I got to buy my nutella in the end, and the taste was glorious and worth the effort.

Wishful Encounter

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We went to visit my dad’s grave yesterday. It has been 14 years since my dad passed away. I kept on asking myself if I have done enough to show my appreciation to my dad when he was still alive. I remember back in the days every time I went to visit my dad he would ask me what did I bring for him. My dad really loved curry puffs so I never missed getting them for him. His face would light up as he enjoyed the curry puffs that I brought. He would sit by his small radio listening to the memukun programme wearing his white singlet and kain pelikat. I hope he was happy.

When I went overseas, my dad always asked me to get the Body Shop perfume for him. He would call it minyak undar. I can still remember the Body Shop scents that he liked, Activist and White Musk. They would be his trademark smell. I always made sure that he never ran out of supply.

So after the trip to the cemetery, I went to my mom’s house for sungkai. The weather looked like a bad storm was coming. Continuous thunder could be heard. Leaves flying everywhere as the wind became stronger. The sounds of broken tree branches could be heard. I peered outside to check if I was parked near a tree. Then came the heavy rain.  There was no way that I would drive in the heavy rain. So I stayed longer until the rain stopped.

It was close to 9pm when the thunderstorm subsided. It was still drizzling though, but it was my mom’s bedtime which was the cue for me to go and make my way back to Bandar. The were still many cars on the highway. I was driving very slow as always. There was this large bus driving so fast. It even overtook me. My car’s radio somehow didn’t work. Maybe because of the weather. I played some youtube music video on my iPad just to make the drive not as long and boring as it already was.

As I arrived in Bandar, I stopped to buy some fried chicken for Dupey and his straymates. I just couldn’t stand looking at their disappointed look when I brought nothing for them. So I made the effort even though I was already tired and looking forward to call it the day.

It was around 1030pm when I finally reached my place. Dupey was so excited to see me, wagging his tail, jumping about. I gave him three fat pieces of the fried chicken which he happily tucked (all three!) in his mouth and off he went. I gave one each to the “onlookers”.

Tired, I dragged my feet to the elevator and went up to my floor. I unlocked my gate and door. I was expecting my cats to meow frantically as they always did when they hear me at the door. But it was all quiet. Strange, I thought to myself. When I opened the door, I was overwhelmed with the smell of perfume that gushed out. The smell was so strong to dismiss the fact that something was going on.

I sniffed and sniffed to ensure that it was not just my imagination. I tried to follow the source but the strong smell was everywhere. It has permeated throughout my apartment. It was the smell of my dad’s Body Shop perfume. I sat on the edge of my bed resigned with the idea that my dad was there visiting me. My eyes were bawling and I said dad Selamat Hari Raya… Im sorry if I ever made you felt that I took you for granted… I missed you so much…

After catching my breath from the heavyduty water works, I went to check on my cats who have not been seen and made no sound since I arrived home. I found them in my bathroom all huddled together on top of the cabinet. They got the spooked look on their faces. On the floor I saw black glass shards scattered everywhere. I knelt to take a closer look. Turned out that they were pieces of a broken Body Shop’s Activist perfume glass bottle which my cats knocked over. This explained their scared look and them being quiet because they knew that they were in trouble.

It was quite a big bottle that I have kept on the display rack in memory of my dad. The content seeped through the bathroom’s tiles and the vapour travelled throughout my place. Oh well, I knew it was too good to be true, but the sense of relieve and closure  during the intense seconds still felt so real…

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Poverty in the Making

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This year 19,913 people received His Majesty the Sultan anugerah kurnia peribadi in conjunction with the upcoming Hari Raya celebration. They are comprised of Orang Bekeperluan Khas (OBK), orphans and registered recipients of the welfare assistance from JAPEM and Majlis Ugama Islam Brunei (MUIB). This number is up from last year’s 19,576, 2017’s 18,299, 2016’s 17,284 and 2015’s 16,479. Which could only mean one thing. The number of destitutes are increasing. This together with the increasing unemployment rate make a lethal combination. It will be just a matter of time before the increasing number of people needing welfare assistance would become overwhelming for the country.

Among the recipients were also people of other races who are certainly not celebrating Hari Raya and hence no Hari Raya spending needs. This puzzled me quite a bit. I am yet to figure out the explanation for it.

As in previous years, similar situations have been reported. There were recipients who were unruly, jumping queues, pushing, rude and very impatient. This is not first come first served basis so I don’t see why they can’t just wait in the queue patiently.

They can do 4 things with the money – spend on basic needs including on school expenses, spend on the things that they always wanted but couldn’t afford before this, pay out debts, and put into savings.

It is very disappointing to hear about some of the things that they do with the money which are a far cry from relieving the financial burden for Hari Raya spending as rightfully intended. What I often hear is that some spent the money to buy new phones.

I also found out that a number of the recipients have been receiving the kurnia for close to a decade now. I find it hard to believe that no initiative can be done to get them out of financial hardship within the close to 10 years period. And these are not frail senior citizens, but are healthy 20 and 30 plus year olds. Something is definitely not right here.

In what sounds like an acknowledgement to this “something is not right” observation, the Minister of Culture, Youths and Sports in November 2019, stated that the ministry has put emphasis on employment and entrepreneurship opportunities to boost economic self-sufficiency of the underprivileged people and reduce their dependency on assistance. The Minister revealed that the government has given aid amounting to B$9.73 million to 5,788 recipients of the Monthly Welfare Assistance (Bantuan Kebajikan Bulanan).

Poisonous Encounter

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This is about what I think as the most senseless crime ever happened in Brunei so far. Its perplexing though that people seem to have forgotten and stopped talking about it, given its bizarre circumstances. This crime happened in 2015 when a 43-year old local man was murdered at Jalan Pandan 7, Kuala Belait District in what would become the first social media murder in the country.

The motive of the murder was money. Two men were involved in the badly hatched plan, 27 and 33 year olds. Their plan was to use the internet to lure the victim for a booty call, kill him and take his money. They must be so stupid or high on drugs to think that it would be easy to execute. My guess was that they were inspired by similar MOs used by criminals in other countries. One example is the Craigslist Killer in 2009 in the US where the killer met his victims through the online Craigslist Ads (offering sex), robbed, and killed one of them.

They lured the victim by posing as a girl on the AsiaFreeChat mobile chat platform who offered sex for $3,500. Once the victim arrived at the house to meet the girl, he was welcomed by one of the men, the 27 year old, who pretended to be the girl’s brother. He offered the victim a drink laced with sleeping pills. The man however refused to take the drink and asked to see the girl immediately. The other man, the 33 year old, then snuck from behind and repeatedly bashed the back of the victim’s neck with a metal rod until the victim was unconscious. Realising that the victim was still alive, the man then finished him off by hitting his head, injecting him with weed poison, and slitting his throat with a parang. What a messy way to kill a person when they could just strangle the man from behind with a cable.

They then covered the body with a garbage bag and a carpet, put the body at the back seat of the victim’s own car, drove and abandoned the car with the body inside behind a cafe at Jalan Pandan 7.  They returned home to clean up traces of the victim’s blood before going to the ATM to try to withdraw the victim’s money. There was no money to withdraw, however, as the victim’s account was empty. I just cant believe that there are still people who are not aware of or are ignorant about the presence of cameras at ATMs.

The body was discovered three days later when one of the cafe’s staff noticed a bad smell coming from the car and called the police. Obviously, with the victim’s ATM card discovered missing, the police had their work cut out for them as CCTV footings at the ATM recorded the two men while trying to withdraw the victim’s money. The fact that the murderers didn’t get away with even a dollar at all made the murder ever so senseless. Also, the fact that those two morons are locals made me wonder what went wrong in their upbringing that they had total disregard of human life.

Both were arrested a week after the murder. Almost four years later, on 01 May 2019, the 27-year old man was sentenced to life imprisonment. His 33 year old partner, who was the main attacker, took the coward way out by committing suicide while in detention. There is no information on how he committed suicide. Obviously, being in a cell, he didn’t have a gun to shoot himself or sharp objects to slit his wrists or his throat. Should he also have weed poison in his pocket, that would have been confiscated before he was thrown in the cell. He only had the clothes on his back, so my guess is he hanged himself using his clothes. Ironically, the Craigslist Killer also killed himself in jail. I could be right about the inspiration theory. Just saying…

The Blessings and Curses of WhatsApp

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I don’t quite remember the exact year WhatsApp was first used in Brunei, but for myself I began to use WhatsApp in 2011. Those around me (just three people actually) also said they started using it about the same time. The one feature that attracted me the most to the app at that time was that it offered cheap alternative to the regular sms. I remember having my phone bills exceeding 1k because I sent around 300+ sms per day. 10 cents per sms! It was only years later that the sms charge was reduced to 5 cents per sms.

I am not the type who can stand long phone calls, so when sms was introduced I think back in …hmm…need to check the year, it was like the answer to my prayer. It should be around 1997 or so. Because there was no way I can afford the big phone bills prior to me starting working.

The other cool feature of WhatsApp when it was introduced was the ability to send photos. I remember before WhatsApp, photos can only be sent using MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), which I believe costed $1 per MMS. Sending MMS from overseas even costed more than that. One time when I was overseas, my sister asked me to get a certain brand handbag for her. I had to take some photos using my digital camera, transfer to my computer, and email them to my sister so that she can choose which one to buy. Now, I can just snap the photo, share on WhatsApp and get the decision in just seconds. Then came the ability to send videos, audios and later documents. The floodgates now opened – oversharing (TMIs), chain messages, fake news, character assassinations – became the new forms of daily entertainment.

With sms, once the message was sent, you are left wondering if the person read it and what took them so long to reply. Now, with WhatsApp, here is the first of its curses – The Ticks (double ticks and the blue ticks). Double ticks mean the message has been delivered and blue ticks mean that the message has been read. Previously, people found themselves anxious waiting for the double ticks to turn blue, and once they turned blue, they are expecting to see “typing…” as in immediate reply. If I accidentally read a message and the sender saw the ticks have turned blue, I would feel obliged to reply immediately, or quickly find an excuse to give later as to why I didn’t reply straight away. Thankfully, WhatsApp users can now deactivate the blue ticks function. But you will be left annoyed, especially if you are the sender, thinking that the person may have read it but chose not to acknowledge or reply your message.

Then came the WhatsApp Group. Suddenly, you are added to this and that group. Family group, alumni group, workshop group, kampong group, project group, work group, all kinds of group. And you have no say. More annoying is when you are made the administrator of the group without even asking for your agreement first. And these people who added you dare to say “welcome to the group” when you didn’t even join by your own free will. Exiting the group will label you as not being a good sport.

Then there is this awkward moment where you want or have to leave the group but not wanting the group members to make a fuss out of it. And Yes, they will make a fuss out of whoever leaving. You leaving the group will be the headline of the day. WhatsApp is soon introducing the group controls function, where we will be able to select who can add you to a group by giving three options – Nobody, My Contacts or Everyone. I surely look forward to that function and will definitely choose Nobody. I hope next WhatsApp will introduce a way to quietly leave a group. Sneak out of the room without waking everybody up. That will certainly remove a major source of predicament.

For now, the best job WhatsApp done so far was introducing the delete message function. Im sure everyone has their own horror tales about sending texts to the wrong chat windows. The moment you realised it, your face turned pale, hands were shaking, and the 7 second rule set in – quickly apologise and say that the text was wrongfully sent or just do nothing and hope that no one takes notice. The delete message function allows you to delete the message within 7 minutes after clicking send. It however does not totally get you out of trouble, especially when the recipient of the deleted messages was your significant other who would still insist to know what the deleted messages were all about. There are still some explaining to do. It will be about time for WhatsApp to remove the “This message was deleted” notification in order for the delete message function to be totally effective.

Certainly with WhatsApp, it brought people, wherever they are in the world, closer “physically” in the virtual context. Gone were the days where we had to use calling cards to talk to people overseas. No more worries about sms charge and roaming bills. Communication is now so cheap that people are grossly taking it for granted. Parents would just text their kids who are right in the next room. People don’t talk anymore, they just send messages. Excitements, sadness, anxiety, fear, anger are shown through the use of emojis and stickers instead of body language and the tone of voices. Seeing the “online” status of loved ones seems to be good enough now to know that the person is okay. Likewise, leaving a group or blocking someone’s number would be good enough to show how angry and annoyed you are. Irritating people can be in your face without you even seeing them in person by posting lame and eyesoring updates to their status. No more birthday cards or Hari Raya cards. People just send their birthday greetings through images or forwarded texts with no personal touch at all.

Suddenly, from just family members and a few friends wishing you Happy Birthday, now in the WhatsApp era, you received birthday greetings from your ex-schoolmates in the Alumni WhatsApp group. Many if not all of the birthday texts are the same ones they just conveniently forwarded. For me, there was a good reason as to why I lost contact with these ex-schoolmates – which is simply that they were not my friends. They just went to the same school the same years as I was. After unwillingly being added to the alumni WhatsApp group, are they supposed to be my “friends” now? A number of them I didn’t even like back then, the adult, married-with-kids version of themselves are no better.

Bottomline, while WhatsApp killed DST revenues, it also along the way killed the human touch to conversations and relationships. It cuts distance, but it doesn’t bring people closer together in the true sense of the words. It does not create you new friends, but it does bring you unnecessary drama and annoyance that you can actually live without.

My Top 5

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Top 5 WTF forgetful moments:

5. Went to gerai, ordered $10 worth of fried chicken, told seller will come back in 5, went home. Only remembered about the chicken the next day.

4. Got home, went to bed. The next day could not find my car key, looked for spare key, went down and saw the car key still in the keyhole.

3. Got home, popped the car’s trunk, unload some stuff, carried them upstairs, went inside, played with my iPad, relaxed in bed, heard dog barking, went out to balcony, looked down and saw my trunk still wide open.

2. Got home, unlocked my door, went inside, went to bed. The next day discovered my house key still in the keyhole outside.

1. Going to work, hands were full, put my phones (2 phones!) on the car’s roof to free up one hand to get car key, got key, started the car’s engine, went in car and drove off. Phones still on the roof, flew off, landed on road, ran over by multiple cars. RIP both.