Philip Yeo - Controversy

Controversy

See also : Censorship in Singapore

Philip Yeo has been embroiled in controversy regarding government scholarships and the associated bonds, duties, and obligations from time to time.

In 1998, as Chairman of EDB, he decided to name publicly the holders of government scholarships who broke their bonds in order to shame them. This created a controversy generating public debates on whether those who received scholarship have a moral obligation to serve, or whether the scholarship is merely a contractual agreement which could be broken in return for the stated penalties. The debate culminated when MP Chng Hee Kok (庄熙国) questioned Yeo's decision. Yeo responded by calling for Chng to resign his seat in Parliament because of his view. This led to even more unhappiness at the audacity of a civil servant talking down to an elected Member of Parliament. Then Deputy Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong had to intervene in what was seen as a face-saving rebuke for both — that Philip Yeo was wrong to tell Chng Hee Kok to resign, but Chng had also been wrong in arguing that it was acceptable for scholars to break their bonds because they were merely legal contracts.

In May 2005, the controversy of A*STAR bond-breakers was revived when The New Paper published an article about him writing in his book that men in Singapore were wimps, whiny, and immature even though they have served the National Service (NS). The reason Yeo gave was that all bond-breakers since early 90s were Singapore men. The anger was further fuelled when a female A*STAR scholar, Chng Zhenzhi, backed his statements and openly declared that Singapore men were fine until "(once) they enter NS, they complain a lot." Philip Yeo served in the part-time NS Special Constabulary (SC) from 1976/78 with the rank of Inspector.

In the same month, Chen Jiahao, a Singaporean Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was threatened with legal action for accusing A*Star and Philip Yeo of "bribing universities for taking in PhD students" under the moniker AcidFlask on his blog caustic.soda. Chen went on to accuse A*Star of "giving out gobs of honey to universities who will sign back-door agreements for taking in scholars without going through the formal application procedure.” Philip Yeo and A*Star responded with threat of legal action, stating that the statements made in AcidFlask’s blog would have been understood to mean that A*Star had acted corruptly in its dealings with universities. The statements also cast serious aspersions on A*Star's scholars to the effect that they were not admitted to their universities on merit but only because their universities were bribed by A*Star to do so. A*Star demanded a public apology from Chen and that the offending and defamatory postings in AcidFlask's 3 March 2005 blog be deleted. Chen chose to shut down his entire blog-site. All posts were removed voluntarily, and replaced with an unreserved apology to "A*STAR, its Chairman Mr. Philip Yeo, and its executive officers for the distress and embarrassment" caused. The incidents upset several members of the local blogging community for his statements. In February 2007, Yeo, in the comments of another blog, revealed the exact posts that were considered defamatory.

In 2006, Philip Yeo began to face criticism for his Biotech strategy. As billions in taxpayers' money had been spent to develop the Biomedical Industry in Singapore. Philip Yeo countered his critics by pointing out that Biomedical manufacturing output had quadrupled from S$6 billion in 2000 to S$23 billion in the 5 years that the country had been investing in the sector. In that short period, the Biomedical industry grew to account for over 5% of Singapore’s GDP and 10,600 high value added jobs. In addition, Yeo also pointed out that during the 5 years of investment, more than 25 companies started research centres in Singapore, including three corporate R&D laboratories run by Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis.

In late 2006, Dr. Lee Wei Ling, head of National Neuroscience Institute, publicly questioned the policy of Philip Yeo and A*Star, asserting that they were wrong by putting public money on competing with western countries on cutting-edge research. She said that Singapore should instead focus on niche areas in Biotech research.

Yeo's work in developing the biomedical industry has received praises by some analysts including Nature correspondent David Cyranoski who wrote that "Singapore's impressive advances in biomedicine are driven by the energetic personality of Philip Yeo."

In response to his daughter's comments, Lee Kuan Yew has stated the following:

"This issue has been deliberated over a period of several months in Cabinet and decided by PM Goh and cabinet. The policy has been continued by PM Lee and his cabinet. We have made significant investments in time and resources. We have to get the most out of what we have put in."