I REFER to Wednesday's ST Online report, 'S'pore Govt dismisses human-rights allegations in IBA report', by Ms Irene Ngoo.

I once applied to the International Bar Association (IBA) alongside my British classmates, to find myself the only one without a reply. Perhaps they decided that I could never represent their interests.

I note that the IBA operates in a country with human-rights peculiarities and claimant-friendly libel suits.

It is a country where I received valuable lessons on the volatile nature of human rights.

There I sat among academics and soldiers to hear a Supreme Allied Commander of Europe state that troops were leaving Iraq because they had succeeded in championing the rights of Iraqis.

I also learned from an astute professor the synonyms Gongo and Bingo. They stand for government-operated NGO (non-governmental organisation) and business and industrialists' NGO, respectively. In its stark humour, it was a memorable warning that saved me from the allure of the populist arguments he pursued in his youth.

The IBA report is, in essence, a blogpost I could write today to tell a lavish neighbour and the Internet community that he (the neighbour) needs to bring down the figures on his Public Utilities Board (PUB) bill because it amounts to mismanaging water and electricity. What would the reader do as the allegorical neighbour?

A week earlier, Malaysia asserted its sovereignty by declaring that its political affairs did not require foreign intervention. There is no question that a similar assertion to our legal affairs has been rightfully made in response to the report.

Yet, there is another side. Incidents like these frequently induce civil servants to remark that citizens do not understand the nuances of Singapore's machinery.

Were this true, it would be wise to educate them and bring opportunities even to those who seem less understanding or privileged, or it should come as no surprise that the image of an elite, millionaire bureaucracy continues to proliferate the national consciousness.

Sincerity put in place of rebukes, censorship, or dialogues in schools would move the next opposition headliner towards great achievements in public service.

For incidents like these also remind us that we cannot support our country by supporting a faction, be it on the inside or the outside. And if we do not march in step, we might well lose the place we call home.

Desmond Wong