SINGAPORE — Former Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP), Calvin Cheng was just appointed as Serbia’s honorary consul in Singapore on Wednesday (16 Nov) by the Prime Minister of Serbia.
In an Instagram post by Ms Ana Brnabić, she wrote that she is proud to present the letter of appointment to Mr Calvin Cheng Ern Lee who will act as Serbia’s honorary consul in Singapore.
Ms Brnabić noted that this is an important step towards improving the friendly relationship, as well as economic, investment cooperation and other specific areas between Serbia and Singapore.
The appointment ceremony is joined by Senior Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sim Ann.
Mr Cheng formerly served as an NMP in 2009 and was appointed as a member of the newly formed Media Literacy Council (MLC) of Singapore’s Ministry of Communications and Information in 2012.
Prior to Mr Cheng’s appointment, Serbia did not have a representative in the island state and its citizens and businesses would have to seek assistance from the ambassador based in Jarkata, Indonesia.
A country can choose to appoint non-citizens as its consuls to look out for the welfare of citizens and provide assistance for citizens and its businesses in a foreign country. In such instances, the consular appointment would be titled, honorary consul.
Vocal Critic On Social Media
Mr Cheng is very much vocal on social media, voicing his opinions on various social-political issues and on several occasions, attracting undue attention and creating public outcries against his comments.
One such example was when he wrote that General Practitioners (GP) should “stick to looking at common colds and diarrhoea instead of writing letters outside their expertise”.
This was in response to an open letter published on 20 May last year by 12 doctors who called for children to be given the ‘killed-virus’ vaccines instead of mRNA vaccines.
Mr Cheng posted on his Facebook page, slamming the letter as being irresponsible.
“They are general practitioners who got a degree in medicine, who then either chose not to specialise in a certain field, or were not chosen to be specialists. So they become GENERALISTS,” he expressed.
Mr Cheng continued, “They look after everyday illnesses, and once an illness or disease is too complex for them, they refer them to the expert in that illness, a specialist.”
“In this case, the specialists we need to listen to are those with expertise in infectious diseases and vaccines.”
Mr Cheng’s comments on GPs attracted a deluge of comments upon his Facebook page, particularly from those in the medical field.
One netizen pointed out to Mr Cheng on his Facebook post that not all the 12 doctors are GPs, and demanded that he apologise for making a false statement.
Replying to the comment, Mr Cheng simply wrote: “No.”
One GP in particular, Dr Hoe, took to Facebook to call out Mr Cheng further.
“The letter was written by a mix of doctors including at least one paediatrician and one internal medicine specialist,” she wrote.
“While I do not agree with the choice of platform, there’s no need to bray for blood.”
Dr Hoe went on to stress, “In addition, many GPs choose to be GPs cos it’s our calling. We want to and choose to be primary care physicians. That does not imply we are lousier doctors than specialists. We love our jobs even though we are poorly paid compared to our more glamorous colleagues.”
She elaborated, “For your info, we do not just treat common colds and diarrhoea. We also treat hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia etc etc , and acute injuries like foreign bodies etc and we also screen patients when appropriate, referring them to specialists at an earlier stage.
“That actually saves lives, in case you still don’t get it.”
