December 19, 11:39 AM 
514 Chai Chee Lane 03-16, Singapore 469029 Heard about this viral online story where Minister of State Teo Ser Luck visited a foreign workers’ dormitory and passed a remark about how comfy their mattress-less bed is?
Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has clarified that Teo did not make the remark. In fact, the remarks were made by their MOM FB Administrator.
In other words, Teo did not introduce his foot to his mouth. MOM has instead put words in his mouth.
Oops.
We'>
Posted by Singapore Ministry of Manpower on Friday, December 18, 2015
Credit to MOM for admitting so quickly that it messed up. Its Facebook clarification has indirectly replied the questions we posed publicly yesterday.
Source: Mothership.sg
Let us examine the post one last time:
The FB post showed a photo of Teo on a bed without a mattress, along with this caption:
"Quite comfy! I learnt that some workers prefer to sleep without a mattress as they are used to it back in their home country. They find it more comfortable and cooler too!
If the FB administrator is a former journalism student, he or she should know that the readers would assume that the quotation marks and the use of an active verb form means that the statements were attributed to Teo.
No one would have thought that the remarks were made by the MOM FB page.
Teo really got sabo-ed
Heard of Sabo? Sabo originated from the word “sabotage”, which is also the Singlish term for pranks.
Toggle - Watch local celebs get Sabo-ed in new Toggle original series http://t.co/pLPJpWt9Yz
— Mike Kasem (@MikeKasem) April 6, 2015
Hosted by radio DJ Mike Kasem, Sabo was also this 12-parter reality show by Mediacorp that featured personalities being pranked so hard that you will probably gag, choke and die smiling. The highlight was Zoe Tay gagging on a fake bloodied finger.
Maybe the MOM FB administrator is Mike Kasem.
And one last thing...
We remember that it was BBC, the venerable UK public service broadcaster, which took sudden interest of this minor event in a former colony and made the issue viral in the first place.
We noticed BBC has sneakily edited its mistakes - addressing Teo now as a Minister of State instead of a Minister - without telling its readers.
BBC's initial article
Source: BBC Website
BBC latest article
Source: BBC website
In its first erroneous article, BBC also reported that MOM mentioned that it had no further comment.
No further comments from MOM? How about the official statement that MOM issued last evening?
Hence, a question to the BBC - was BBC informed by MOM that they would be issuing an official statement? Or worse still, did BBC knowingly publish an article before MOM's clarification?
Is BBC trying to sabo MOM?
Related article:
What do Teo Ser Luck, BBC and Ministry of Manpower have in common?
Top photo from the Ministry of Manpower Facebook page.
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