Ming Yi, the new Durai
16th July 2008, Wednesday
The big news in town has to be the probe and trial of estranged former head of the charity-fund community hospital Ren Ci, Venerable Shi Ming Yi.
After the a few months of investigation by the Charity Council of Singapore with their accounts, it was found that there were several cases of irregularities which led to bring the abbot into limelight as he seemed to approve loaning of money to some other organizations and companies set under his name using money donated to the hospital.
This fiasco surely drew parallel to that of the NKF saga back in 2005 (in fact NKF was probed in July that year) and put the National Kidney Foundation in bad light (donations much reduced) and T.T. Durai, the CEO became the main villain of it all after judged to misappropriate the funds for his "peanuts"-worth annual income, 1st class flights for dubious conferences and golden taps for the personal toilet in the office.
NKF since then halt all public form of aggressively campaign for funds as in those annual (sometime more than 3 times a year) live TV variety extravaganza from our local network to solicit for as much donations as possible with local Mediacrop artistes being subjected to some daredevil stunts.
Their success (in ascension with each rendition) see several other Non-government Charitable organizations following suit, including Venerable Ming Yi's Ren Ci Hospital.
The show the latter put up was a much heart warming one with the sad stories of the poor patients taking the highlight and no lucky draw for cars or other lavish prizes (which was always frowned upon but a tactic local mid-income philanthropists are suckered into).
The actors and actresses of Caldecott Hill after being scrutinized for unreasonably put their lives at risk for those stunts put up acts which involves less danger.
However the grave danger was faced by someone else...Ming Yi himself.
Over the course of the proliferation of Ren Ci's charity shows, the abbot had balanced himself on wooden planks suspended on tall buildings or doing other stunts out of the page from David Blaine or something.
This usually drew sympathy from the hosts and guests of the show, with tears for fear for his demise if something went wryly wrong; and the viewers at home were too shared the sympathies and felt the only right way to redeem themselves, was to make more donations.
For the longest time possible, I felt such method of solicitation for donations is uncalled for and downright abhorrent.
I had refused to support such causes but I am not a very charitable man to begin with though the same cannot be said about my family as they together with a large majority of the local Chinese-speaking population who didn't had much to do on Sunday evenings but watched these programs were suckered into donating quite a lot of money.
Of course we all felt it is for a good cause and for Chinese, we believed in good karma.
However after the NKF fiasco and now with Ren Ci who seemed to be the one organization no one wants to believe to be dabbling with such shameful misappropriation of funds, especially with the well respected Venerable Ren Ci (who my mom claimed to reside in a condominium), I think people starting to become jaded and think twice now on whether they will want to make a donation to such NGOs again.
Personally I felt bad but couldn't help gleefully sniggering with the terms "HA HA SUCKERS!" spontaneously sprouting in my mind...
Then again I believe in karma as well so I shouldn't laugh at others who had done so in the past unlike myself,'cos I might need such aides in the future.
I am also a sentimental human being who will be moved by sad scenes on TV, just that I don't react with my wallet though....
The big news in town has to be the probe and trial of estranged former head of the charity-fund community hospital Ren Ci, Venerable Shi Ming Yi.
After the a few months of investigation by the Charity Council of Singapore with their accounts, it was found that there were several cases of irregularities which led to bring the abbot into limelight as he seemed to approve loaning of money to some other organizations and companies set under his name using money donated to the hospital.
This fiasco surely drew parallel to that of the NKF saga back in 2005 (in fact NKF was probed in July that year) and put the National Kidney Foundation in bad light (donations much reduced) and T.T. Durai, the CEO became the main villain of it all after judged to misappropriate the funds for his "peanuts"-worth annual income, 1st class flights for dubious conferences and golden taps for the personal toilet in the office.
NKF since then halt all public form of aggressively campaign for funds as in those annual (sometime more than 3 times a year) live TV variety extravaganza from our local network to solicit for as much donations as possible with local Mediacrop artistes being subjected to some daredevil stunts.
Their success (in ascension with each rendition) see several other Non-government Charitable organizations following suit, including Venerable Ming Yi's Ren Ci Hospital.
The show the latter put up was a much heart warming one with the sad stories of the poor patients taking the highlight and no lucky draw for cars or other lavish prizes (which was always frowned upon but a tactic local mid-income philanthropists are suckered into).
The actors and actresses of Caldecott Hill after being scrutinized for unreasonably put their lives at risk for those stunts put up acts which involves less danger.
However the grave danger was faced by someone else...Ming Yi himself.
Over the course of the proliferation of Ren Ci's charity shows, the abbot had balanced himself on wooden planks suspended on tall buildings or doing other stunts out of the page from David Blaine or something.
This usually drew sympathy from the hosts and guests of the show, with tears for fear for his demise if something went wryly wrong; and the viewers at home were too shared the sympathies and felt the only right way to redeem themselves, was to make more donations.
For the longest time possible, I felt such method of solicitation for donations is uncalled for and downright abhorrent.
I had refused to support such causes but I am not a very charitable man to begin with though the same cannot be said about my family as they together with a large majority of the local Chinese-speaking population who didn't had much to do on Sunday evenings but watched these programs were suckered into donating quite a lot of money.
Of course we all felt it is for a good cause and for Chinese, we believed in good karma.
However after the NKF fiasco and now with Ren Ci who seemed to be the one organization no one wants to believe to be dabbling with such shameful misappropriation of funds, especially with the well respected Venerable Ren Ci (who my mom claimed to reside in a condominium), I think people starting to become jaded and think twice now on whether they will want to make a donation to such NGOs again.
Personally I felt bad but couldn't help gleefully sniggering with the terms "HA HA SUCKERS!" spontaneously sprouting in my mind...
Then again I believe in karma as well so I shouldn't laugh at others who had done so in the past unlike myself,'cos I might need such aides in the future.
I am also a sentimental human being who will be moved by sad scenes on TV, just that I don't react with my wallet though....
Japanese word of the day: 慈善 (Charity) Always remembered a Uni chum of mine who was adamant not to help out in charitable causes, claiming he is not a charitable person, so why pretend to be one...wise words I tell you
Labels: Singapore
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