For members of Parliament (MPs) who spend a long time serving the same ward, they literally see their constituents grow up.
It’s no different for Minister for Home Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam, currently an MP for Chong Pang in Nee Soon GRC.
It turns out that he’s been in Chong Pang for so long that he gave an award to a girl in 1996, then to her son 27 years later.
Source: K Shanmugam Sc on Facebook
Mr Shanmugam related the interesting story in a Facebook post on Friday (23 June).
At the Education Merit Award Ceremony this year, he met a 9-year-old Yishun Primary School pupil named Eben Yong.
He gave him an award for his good performance and took a photo with his proud family.
Source: K Shanmugam Sc on Facebook
So far, an ordinary occurrence, except that Eben’s mother showed the minister something surprising.
The mother, Sharon, showed Mr Shanmugam an old photo dating back to 1996.
It was of the minister himself, giving Sharon an Edusave Scholarship award.
Source: K Shanmugam Sc on Facebook
These awards, as Singaporeans may know, are typically given out by grassroots advisers — usually the MP unless it’s an opposition ward.
At the time, Sharon was a Secondary 1 student at Naval Base Secondary School.
Mr Shanmugam said at the time, he was MP for Chong Pang — a position he has held since the 1988 General Election.
Though Chong Pang was under Sembawang GRC at the time, it’s now in Nee Soon GRC.
He marvelled at the fact that he gave Sharon an award 27 years ago, and then gave her son an award in 2023.
This could probably happen because Sharon has been his resident for more than 35 years, Mr Shanmugam said.
Though now she’s a mother of three, she has been living in Nee Soon since she was a little girl.
She seems to like living in the estate so much, it seems she’s chosen to bring up her family there as well.
Mr Shanmugam said was happy about that and wished Sharon and her family the very best.
It’s remarkable that it seems Mr Shamugam has literally seen his resident grow up.
Though he must have touched many lives during his 35 years in Chong Pang, it must have been wonderful to see actual evidence of how they have thrived under his watch.
Perhaps there will be many more of such examples in other wards with long-serving MPs as well.
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Featured images adapted from K Shanmugam Sc on Facebook.
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