My parliamentary colleagues here, Mr Heng Chee How, 
Professor Maliki, Permanent Secretary, Chief of Defence Force, Chief of Services, 
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen

First let me welcome all of you to tonight's appreciation dinner for our Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) Volunteers. The significant and consistent contributions of our volunteers over the years have helped Singapore build a strong national defence. And I think when we look around us when there is so much uncertainty and trouble, a strong national defence becomes a priceless asset, because all of us know that amid the uncertainty and troubles, the mandate and mission of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) is to protect Singapore's interests and keep Singaporeans safe, and you as volunteers, you help MINDEF and the SAF achieve this important goal. So tonight's dinner is just a small way of saying 'thank you' for all your contributions.

Our History of Volunteerism 

But I thought, I also wanted to reflect another important aspect of what our MINDEF volunteers do. Because, just as importantly, I think you serve as mentors and examples for others to emulate and tonight I wanted to spend a little time talking about the virtues of our MINDEF volunteers. Not only to praise you, but, lest we take the system and the whole spirit of volunteerism for granted. And I just like to focus on three aspects, three virtues if I may call them that. First of all, all of you volunteer, not for physical gain, because there is none to be had unless you know of another scheme that I am not sure about, but you do so, I think, because of a personal commitment to this nation. If you did not believe in Singapore, you would not put in the many hours required, often out of the limelight.

And I thought for our bicentennial year, that belief in Singapore is that much more poignant. So for those of you who have had the pleasure of viewing the Fort Canning Bicentennial Exhibition, it is very well done within 45 minutes. You get to see 700 years of history, condensed and succinct. And as you know, in 1819, they thought there were about 150 Singaporeans if we can call them that here and, Raffles landed here and decided that it would be a good port and of course we were aside the proxy battles between the British and the Dutch. That's another story and so on and so forth. But if you thought about it, the 150 odd people in this sleepy fishing village; if you asked them to predict what Singapore will be like in 200 years this year, I think it would be hard for them to imagine that Singapore is where it is today - if by some miracle, you could transport them here. Similarly for us, I think if you ask what Singapore would be like 50,100, 200 years from now hence, it is actually very difficult to conceive even of what Singapore might be. As volunteers, you act on your convictions today, to give what you can, to effect what you must in the belief that it will make Singapore better. Whether Singapore does become better, we are not sure but we act on the courage and conviction of our beliefs. And that brings me to the second virtue of our MINDEF volunteers – your professionalism and integrity.

What do I mean? From time to time, we get foreign visitors, who want to study facets of Singapore. We get them often and my most recent one was with the royalty of some country whose diplomatic rules do not allow me to tell you who and when, but he was interested in our national service. And as accustomed to when we get these requests, I will say in all humility, that we are  a small country, we are not out to teach others but would be happy to facilitate any study trips because we are an open book. You send your delegations here, we will arrange a programme and show them briefings. But as is often the case, I find it hard sometimes to explain why our system works and not how our system works. How our system works, you can give a briefing. What do I mean? Let me illustrate with the many boards that our volunteers sit on. There are the scientific boards, the DSO and DSTA; there are the boards that our medical advisors, many of you sit on; compensation, visitors, legal, pro bono, architectural, safety so on and so forth – 40 boards. And I can imagine when they were given the brief, we just show on the slide, these 40 boards. And when they ask us how we ensure that our system is fair to Full-time National Servicemen (NSFs) for medical and physical employment standards (PES) for grading, for legal access, for military courts, civil requisition compensation and so on, we could simply show the slide to say that there are these boards and volunteers help us.. Or if they ask how our SAFRA clubs are built well and ran efficiently, I could give the same answer. But even if these visitors could replicate our structure in their countries, there is little assurance that they will get the same result. Because, it is not the structure of our many boards that you serve on that provides that assurance. It is your integrity, your impartiality, your appreciation of the larger enterprise that makes NS work. And I think those are the essential ingredients – those you cannot buy, you cannot gain overnight. And our volunteers take their roles and responsibilities seriously, and that is not something that I think another country can find or replicate easily.

The third virtue, which is often taken for granted – is trust within our society. Because even if MINDEF is a subset of altruistic virtuous people, the bedrock of the society from which we emanate from, which is our gestational bed if you like, determines what happens on a day to day basis. Our volunteers come from all sectors of society – in fact they represent the traits of our nation. Why does that count so much? Because, if we did not have multiracial and multi-religious harmony that breeds trust rather than fear and suspicion, can we believe that people of one race would trust another to make important decisions that will affect their life, whether it is his vocation during NS or the judgment of a military court? I was Minister of Education, if some of you can remember and we were doing very well in Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). And you know, the naysayers will say, "Oh you are very good in exams, but I do not think you can do well in creative questions." So our professionals, after their masters, subscribed to another one, it is called Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and it has a lot more creative questions. We went for it and topped it as well. So now we are not only good for rote learning, but we are also quite good at creative things. They came to study our systems after realising that we do very well. And they came to this conclusion, and we had many symposiums, that the Singapore education system works because of trust. Just a simple marking of scripts, sometimes they lose it and then we have to regain their trust. They came to the conclusion that our system works, apart from all the structural aspects, because of high trust. Our volunteers are trusted. Which is why members of the Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence (ACCORD) reach out to the various institutions that you have influence over, that you lead, whether in business, or with other women, or parents – people trust you. This year for example, the ACCORD Family and Community Council conducted the inaugural NS Information Sharing session for pre-enlistees. So we got members of ACCORD parents to talk to other parents. When we did that, it is not something special but because we believe that it will work. Because why would you believe one set of parents when you could believe another? Because of trust. They spoke to them in Shanghai, during the Singapore Day organised by the Overseas Singaporean Unit. The parents there trusted what our ACCORD members shared. 

Trust is essential, not only for building up a society but for it to function. We witness what is happening in Hong Kong now, and it pains me greatly. For many years now, our Government leaders and officials from Singapore visit Hong Kong and there is a reason for it. We like to visit Hong Kong because it has similarities and also sharp differences. It is pointless to visit another city that is completely like Singapore. So we like to visit Hong Kong because they are organised differently. Different organising principals, whether it is their Central Provident Fund (CPF), whether it is their manpower, whether it is their education system, whether it is their legal systems, whether it is their fiscal policy because they do not have NS, and so on and so forth. And they are a high-functioning society, much like ours, but organised differently. And those differences bring out rich learning lessons for us - on what to do and sometimes, what not to do. Each time I visited Hong Kong, I would invariably be impressed with the vitality and resourcefulness of their people which have created their vibrant society. So when I was Minister for Manpower, I remember at that time after Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), unemployment went up 6%. I doubt that you remember, but we remember and we had to find different trades for people and jobs for them to go. We were looking at skills even then. So I visited, I remember their training academy for Chefs. They have one of the best grading system for chefs. So if you know the classification, you know which chef has cooked for you and sometimes they even distribute by which room you are. A very complicated system if you are in Hong Kong. We wanted to see how they trained chefs. We were very impressed with their service standards, the extra miles and we can learn from this.. But now, trust within the HK society is broken. It matters less how this downward spiral began because with each passing day, the acrimony and distrust mounts and that makes it much harder for any trust to be restored. It is my personal hope that the people of Hong Kong can once again, as they have done so often in the past against many formidable challenges, regain that fortitude and cohesion, to start and rebuild what has been broken. Many of you remember SARS; Hong Kong was devastated by SARS, much more than us but they rebuilt. There was distrust in the system but they regained.

Trust within our society also explains why the ground-up support for NS and the SAF has been maintained, over many years. And much of it because of what you, as volunteers, have helped us to do. Our public polls show that 98% believe in the importance of a strong defence. Now I will tell you that I have seen many poll results. Some which I believe wholeheartedly, fist on chest. Some which I take with a huge dose of salt. But this one, these same questions has been polled for over 20 years and it is very hard to get a question amongst Singaporeans that 98% agree with. I challenge you to find me another question, apart from the fact that Singaporeans like food. But 98%, repeatedly and over a long period of time, believe in a strong defence and believe that the SAF is important. If our people believed that the system discriminated against them and is not fair for all, we would not have this level of support. I am impressed because of the trend, as well as the dips and the rises. So when we had a series of accidents, we asked the same questions, "do you believe in a strong defence, do you believe in a strong SAF, do you believe that training is safe?". These are kept constant. 

Today, we have nearly 300 volunteers across 40 boards. Volunteers of high calibre trusted and respected in your various fields and spheres of influence. Your varied experience, your viewpoints adds resilience and robustness to our system. This is especially valuable as MINDEF and the SAF evolve to meet the needs and challenges of the next generation. And evolve we must, if we are to stay relevant and effective. 
 
For example, we had to beef up our External Review Panel on SAF Safety (ERPSS), to strengthen our safety system due to recent accidents and incidents. The ERP members have assisted us greatly, especially during the recent Committees of Inquiry (COI). To improve legal access for affected servicemen, we also have the MINDEF Pro Bono Lawyers' Panel who can serve as Defending Officers. And we have expanded in the areas of medical research and ethics; our volunteers guide us to prepare against new biological threats. A new generation of NSFs also brings along new patterns of diseases, including more who are diagnosed with psychological afflictions. That has gone up, we have not seen that before and the numbers are increasing and we have to respond to it. The experts on our various medical advisory boards help us to ensure that these people who have these conditions can still enlist, train and place them in appropriate vocations. As we begin to design and build SAFTI City which will be the training centre for another generation of NSmen, to enhance training realism for our soldiers across different terrains, we rely on the expertise of members on the Architectural Advisory Board. 

The deep expertise that you as volunteers bring individually broadens MINDEF and the SAF's capabilities to navigate the complex and evolving security environment that confronts us.

Celebrating the SAF Volunteer Corps

I should also make another mention of another volunteer group, recently formed. This is the SAFVC. It is now into its fifth year, and has grown from strength to strength since the initial batch of over 200 volunteers. And this was the first year that they marched at the National Day Parade and rightly so.

We have over 800 volunteers today; in fact it is not easy to become a volunteer. We have more applicants than we can train each year; of the 800, including 200 PRs who have chosen to make Singapore their home. These volunteers serve in various roles, in engineering, safety, counselling, legal and even the military band. In fact because of the good response, we have expanded and added another five roles this year – Physiotherapist Assistant, Veterinarian Technician, Drone Auxiliary Trainer, Video Surveillance Operator and Sea Soldier. So the number of vocations have risen to 30. I suspect we expand our vocations based on what comes in because the demographics and the characteristics of our volunteers are very interesting. They come from diverse backgrounds, diverse countries and each has a story to tell and some are extremely well qualified. We have PhDs who are willing to come into the bootcamp, if you could call it, and become volunteers and they serve shoulder to shoulder alongside our active servicemen, NSFs and NSmen. 

Conclusion

I think this bicentennial year is a fitting reminder that the past shapes our future. We who are in the present are beneficiaries only because our forebears acted responsibly and courageously to do their part to give us a better life today. In turn, we in the present must give of our best so that tomorrow, Singapore will be better, stronger and more united. Majulah Singapura.