Read this, this and this for context before reading on.

Dear Francis,

Firstly, I advise you to remove both images you stole from my website without my permission with immediate effect. You do not have the rights to use those images in your blog.

Secondly, you should get your facts right. I do not own the car in the said images. Go check with JPJ on its ownership.

I shall not respond to your personal attacks against me. Only people who cannot argue sensibly will resort to such forms of response. Lets debate this issue like adults instead of hitting below the belt with name calling.

Nobody put me up to it. Bathma has nothing to do with what I wrote. This is not about Bathma. Even if you had written the same things about another person, I would still have written what I wrote regarding this matter.

I know what is right and what is wrong and what you are doing goes against the grain of the Persons with Disabilities Act and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which amongst others state that disabled persons have the right to accessible public transport.

Nowhere did the Act and the Convention say that only “disabled people living in poverty” have the right to public transport while disabled people who own cars are not entitled to that right.

I would like to comment on the contradictory statements you made in your blog.

You said that people with cars have no business using “OKU transport and abusing and depriving others who have no transport at all from using it.”

In another entry you said, “Meanwhile, we are happy to note in The Star that the MBPJ van is being used by your Ahli Majlis Anthony Thanasayan to carry out his official duties for your council.”

I believe Anthony Thanasayan owns a car too. So by your logic, he should not be using the van too by virtue of him owning a car, right? So which is which? Are disabled persons who own cars allowed to use the MBPJ van or not?

As a city councillor, Anthony should set a good example by using his own car even for official duties and not deprive others who have no transport at all from using it, right? By using the van for whatever purposes, Anthony is depriving other disabled people the use of the van “when others need it for hospital and other pressing matters.”

Is it not hypocrisy on your side to say disabled people who own cars should not use the MBPJ van while on the other hand you are praising Anthony for using the van although he owns a car?

Francis, let me put it very simply to you here. I have no quarrel with you. What I wanted to point out was that it is not our place to decide who can or cannot use the van. All disabled people are entitled to use the van if they are staying in PJ. This is called equality unless your form of equality is segregating disabled people into categories and deciding what they are entitled to or not. If that is so, I would like to know which part of the Act or Convention you based your arguments on.

Frankly speaking, I can see that you have such passion in advocating for the rights of disabled people. Why not use that passion to advocate to the powers that be to accord us our rights instead of you spending so much time and effort in denying another disabled person his? These are very interesting times and we should use this opportunity to get all disabled advocates to work together and push for the recognition of our rights so that all disabled people can benefit from it.

I am sure you understand what I am trying to say, right?

Thank you .

Regards,
Peter Tan

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi just announced a 15 sen/litre reduction for RON97 petrol from tomorrow. I did a quick calculation. Our fuel-efficient Honda City VTEC guzzles about 20 litres of petrol for a journey from Kuala Lumpur to Penang. 20 litres at the old price of 2.70 is RM54 while at the new price of 2.55 will be RM51. Yay! A savings of RM3.

I am grateful that with the savings from a return trip, Wuan and I can afford one more bowl of hokkien mee and another plate of char kuey teow. Well, they cost around RM3 the last time we had them at Bayan Bay Food Court. That was many years ago. And then again, maybe not since the price of hawker food have been increasing steadily the past few years. By the way, after using petrol from Petronas, Shell and Caltex, we found that Caltex Techron Gold provides power for better acceleration.

I am not a breakfast person. I know, I know. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Once upon a time, it was the first meal until I began to get stomach discomfort right after having it. This went one for several weeks. I have skipped breakfast since. I never found out the cause of the problem though.

My cousin Peter introduced me to this quaint little kopitiam called Joo Leong Cafe at Sungai Tiram on the way to the Penang International Airport. It serves seafood porridge and noodle in the evening. They had fish maw which is one of my favourite. I usually had it with sliced fish in piping hot porridge. There were also several stalls selling jiu hu eng chai (cuttle fish and kangkung in thick sauce), yim kuk kai (salt-baked chicken) and satay.

Other than porridge and noodles, they also served toasts. I prefer thick toasts over sliced ones. Joo Leong uses Hailam bread which is bread with its crust removed. The bread is toasted and generously slathered with butter and sprinkled with granulated sugar. Toasts and porridge is an odd combination especially for dinner. I was soon initiated into it and could not stop eating the first time I had it.

For breakfast, the toasts are served with half-boiled eggs. The taste of buttered toasts dipped in the eggs is simply heavenly. This is one breakfast that is worth having a stomach upset over. Wuan likes the packed nasi lemak and fried noodles too. Each time we are in Penang, we would try to make time to drop in either for breakfast or dinner. I am already salivating at the thought of sinking my teeth into the toasts when we get to Penang next week.

Photo by Wuan.

Clowning around with the Shrek ears hair band that came in the goodie bag at the AllMalaysian Bloggers Project (AMBP) Smashin’ Gathering for Bloggers held at Cineleisure in June. I am looking forward to the next gathering already. Guys?

Dear Pak Lah,
I just saw in the news on tv that you made a surprise check on KTM Komuter and Kelana Jaya Line. You saw for yourself the problems that people are facing when using these two lines. Did you see any wheelchair user in the trains? Did you see any disabled person while you were waiting at the station? No? If 5% to 10% of the population is disabled, you should statistically see at least one disabled person out of every ten non-disabled people that you met at the train stations. Do you know why?

Come, let me tell you. It is very simple. The external built environment, the first step towards the liberty of wheelchair users, is full of barriers. There are no ramps to pedestrian walkways. Sometimes, there are no walkways at all. We have to risk life and limbs to go on the road to move from point to point and risk being hit by vehicles. There are also very few pedestrians crossing for us to cross the road safely.

The buses - no wheelchair user can get into one. Government-owned RapidKL and RapidPenang have promised to make their buses friendly to us. None are despite the repeated promises. We waited and waited. In the end, the supposedly wheelchair-friendly RapidKL buses that were shown to us had badly designed ramps and rickety wheelchair restraining system and very few bus stop that wheelchair users could get to. So no go there too.

Minister of Women, Family and Community Development Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen said that only 50 disabled people have applied for the 10,000 jobs made available in the public sector. She also said that disabled people “cannot just expect us to knock on your doors and inform you about the opportunities.”

Truth be told dear Pak Lah, we do not expect Dr. Ng to come knocking on our doors one by one to inform us of job openings. No, she has more important things to accomplish than to do that. We know there are openings but how are we supposed to go to work when almost all the infrastructure in the country is hostile to disabled people. The built environment is against us. There is no public transport that we can take.

When disabled people cannot even access these two basic facilities safely and conveniently, how can we go to school to get an education and acquire the necessary qualifications to be gainfully employed? How can we go to workplaces when the same problems in the built environment and public transport still beset us?

Pak Lah, please listen to our heartfelt pleas. We have been marginalized for so long that our community have been left far behind as compared to the rest of the rakyat. Most of us are under-qualified, unemployed and dependent on our family or charity to survive. We feel so depressed sometimes thinking about the pathetic situation we are in now.

We want to be active participants in society and contribute meaningfully to nation-building. We want to lead a fulfilling and productive life. We are unable to because of these unresolved problems. Do you know how ridiculous it is that Datuk Sheikh Muzaphar could go to the International Space Station which is more than 300km away in outer space and come back safely while a wheelchair users like me cannot even get to KLCC from Pandan Perdana which is a mere 10km apart in distance using public transport?

Pak Lah, we beseech you to use all the power and resources within your means to correct this situation. Disabled people do not want to be still marginalized like this when Malaysia achieves developed nation status in 2020. I hope you will find that little spark of conscience in your heart to do what is right in this matter. I look forward to the day when Malaysia is a country with infrastructure that is inclusive and accessible to everyone. It is then that the government can say with a firm conviction that Malaysia is truly a masyarakat penyayang.

Thank you for your time.

Yours very sincerely,
Peter Tan
Wheelchair user of 24 years