About Singapore

[Ry_Tower]

about population...

Singapore has around 3.5M citizens, around 5M people including foreigners.

Its easier to discipline 5M people...

Metro Manila alone has more than 12M people at night.

And many visitors from other provinces hehehe

[kagalingan]

and singapore has mix chinese, malays, indians tapos mga westerners na.

kung iisipin mo talaga ang galing ni lee kwan yew.

So the key is population control and tough love.

[uls]

education

--

Singapore has around 3.5M citizens, around 5M people including foreigners.

Its easier to discipline 5M people...

Metro Manila alone has more than 12M people at night.

Japan has 125M people

Tokyo alone has 14M people

[uls]

singapore's development is very unique and can't replicated elsewhere

maswerte sila they had an authoritarian leader (LKY) who was smart and benevolent

[kagalingan]

napakalaki ng tokyo sa ncr 2,194 km2 vs 636km2. So they can move freely pa. Dito NCR patayan na sa pwesto.

Pag pinasok population kailangan yung space din. Mahirap kumilos pag madami tao.

[uls]

the argument posted above -- pag konte tao madali "disiplinahin" kaya maayos ang lugar

so explain why tokyo has less crime and is cleaner and more orderly than many other cities

hindi sa dami ng tao

nasa quality ng tao

-

kahit 1000 lang tao sa isang barangay pero pag lahat tao diyan ugaling unggoy asahan mo magulo at makalat ang lugar na yan

[dr. d]

modern japan came from a feudal society, where looks did kill.
thru the centuries, the discipline has remained... ingrained.

[kagalingan]

ganito na lang. Magbigay example ng countries na overpopulated sa area tapos peaceful.

Tapos kung ilan bansa na low population na tag hirap.

Its hard to be educated tapos overpopulated pa. Ang mga nakapag-aral dapat ahyaw mag-anak.

Kung nakapag-aral ang mga tao dapat hindi anak ng anak lalo na kung masikip na lugar.

[uls]

[Deestone]

and in SG majority of the people don't wear mask....

[dr. d]

and in SG majority of the people don't wear mask....

but 90% of SG's population have been vaccinated.
hence their seeming laxity...

[Miles_on]

When they were “expelled” from Malaysia in the 60’s everything looked so bleak. Ganun din with South Korea in the 50’s after their war, hopelessly mired in poverty. The latter (SK) had a series of bad presidents and dictators/tyrants din (ex. Chun Doo Hwan, etc). Nagpapadala din ng mga OFW ang SK noon tulad natin.

In a mere span of 50-60 years, wealthy first world OECD nations na sila. Maraming factors siguro, pero one common thing lang na observe ko about these countries:

The majority of the population concern themselves with doing something meaningful and productive with their lives.

Eh if for example, in your 40’s na pero pabanjing banjing pa rin living off what your parents accomplished, or kung employed man, nasa family business (para lang masabing may work) pero puro bulakbol/lakwatsa naman sa oras ng trabaho o kaya tambay maghapon sa internet para magpost ng kung ano anong walang kwentang bagay eh… welcome to da Pelipens...

[donbuggy]

How Singapore Beat The U.S With Insane Subway Project




When will the Philippines be like Singapore?

[papi smith]

Na miss mo ba?: Since 2016 parang Singapore tayo di ba? Since umupo si Ang Kwan, Yung Kwan, ah basta! [emoji16]

[donbuggy]

NUS student fined for putting green beans into car tyre valves to deflate them | CNA
Benjamin Chia Yit Loong was interested in climate change and environmental issues, and wished to make SUV ownership unattractive, the court heard.
by Lydia Lam
06 Nov 2025

SINGAPORE: A National University of Singapore (NUS) student inserted green beans into the tyre valves of seven cars to deflate them, as he wanted to make ownership of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) unattractive.

Benjamin Chia Yit Loong, a 24-year-old Singaporean, was fined S$3,000 (US$2,300) by a court on Thursday (Nov 6) for one count of mischief.

The court heard that Chia was interested in climate change and environmental issues, and wished to make SUV ownership unattractive.

He decided to deflate the tyres of cars parked near his house, and to leave on the cars flyers about the environmental damage caused by SUVs.

At around 10am on Nov 19, 2024, Chia bought a packet of green beans and took them with him to two multistorey car parks at Blocks 519A and 517A, Woodlands Drive 14.

Over about two hours, Chia deflated the tyres of seven cars by unscrewing their tyre caps, placing green beans inside the tyre valves and closing the caps.

He deflated all the tyres of the first car but subsequently deflated only one to two tyres of the rest. He left flyers on the windshields headlined "Attention - your gas guzzler kills."

[donbuggy]

The world’s most powerful passports for 2026 | CNN
by Maureen O'Hare
Jan. 13, 2026

When it comes to traveling from country to country without restrictions and enjoying shorter lines at border control, there’s an elite tier of passports with more clout than others.

The top three passports, says the latest report by the Henley Passport Index, are Asian countries: Singapore at No. 1 and Japan and South Korea tied at No. 2.

Singaporeans enjoy visa-free access to 192 of the 227 countries and territories tracked by the index, which was created by the London-based global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners, and uses exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association.

Japan and South Korea are just behind with visa-free access to 188 destinations.

The Henley Passport Index - Global Passport Ranking (2026)

Singapore - 1st

United States - 10th

Philippines - 73rd

[bmacavanza]

Came back from Singapore for 4 nights

[donbuggy]

5 Cool experiences that make the Hyundai Innovation Center in SG worth a visit | Top Gear Philippines
Worth the visit if you’re in Singapore.
by Carlo Chungunco
Mar. 7, 2026

Sign up for the free Discovery Tour here.

[donbuggy]

[In This Economy] Why Singapore moves while Metro Manila doesn’t | Rappler
by JC Punongbayan
Jul 15, 2026

It’s my third time in Singapore, and I’m always amazed at their transportation system, particularly their railway system. Trains arrive every two to three minutes. Stations are clean and cool. A single card (or these days, any credit card) gets you on any train or bus.

Then you fly home and go back to the drudgery of lining up for an hour at an MRT-3 station, or waiting for a bus along EDSA in the rain.

How Singapore did it

Singapore’s exemplary rail system did not spring from wealth alone. Instead, it sprang from meticulous planning and continuity.

The government identified the need for a rail backbone in its 1971 Concept Plan, debated it for a decade, and committed in 1982 to what was then its largest public project ever. Every government since has kept building on it, regardless of who was in power.

Institutions mattered, too. Since 1995, a single agency, the Land Transport Authority, has planned roads, rails, and buses as one integrated and coherent system. Buses are not competitors to trains but feeders: routes are planned (and paid for) by the state, and private operators are contracted to run them. Fares are integrated so a trip combining bus and train doesn’t punish the transferring passenger.

Singapore also made driving expensive on purpose. A certificate of entitlement, which one needs just to own a car, can cost more than the car itself. While politically painful, it pushed people toward public transport and freed up roads for buses.

In contrast, the three rail lines in the Philippines were built under different administrations, different contracts, and different technologies. Agencies with overlapping mandates (the transportation department, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, and local governments) each hold a piece of the commuting puzzle; no one holds the whole.

Meanwhile, we kept building roads and skyways instead, which mostly benefit the one in 10 or so Filipino households that own cars. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has estimated that congestion costs Metro Manila about P3.5 billion a day, and that could balloon to P5.4 billion daily by 2035 if nothing changes.

What we can realistically do

The good news is that the Metro Manila Subway, MRT-7, and the North-South Commuter Railway are all under construction, and the LRT-1 extension already reaches Parañaque.

The first task then is to just finish what we started. Our record here is not encouraging. Take the case of MRT-7 along Commonwealth Avenue, going near UP Diliman. It broke ground in 2016 and may only partially open in 2027. Right-of-way problems have stalled the LRT-1 extension’s later phases. Every delay compounds costs and erodes public trust.

Second, we need to integrate our systems. A commuter today may need, for instance, separate cards, separate lines, and long walks between stations. All of this should have been designed as one. A true common station, seamless transfers, and a single fare system across all trains, buses, and modern jeepneys would raise ridership without having to lay a single new track.

Third, treat buses as infrastructure. The EDSA Busway or Carousel, born as a pandemic stopgap, now moves hundreds of thousands daily. This model of dedicated lanes, service contracting, and government-planned routes could be extended to other corridors far more cheaply and quickly than rail. The Cebu Bus Rapid Transit Project is a good example, but it has “faced repeated delays” itself and a “series of restructurings and deadline extensions.”

Likewise, rather than treating jeepneys as a problem to be phased out, we could treat them as Singapore treats its feeder buses: the last-mile link between homes and stations. The jeepney modernization program might face less resistance if drivers were offered contracted feeder routes, with stable pay, instead of loans they cannot afford.

Fourth, the constant exhortation to fix institutions. We may need our own version of the Land Transport Authority (LTA): a single metropolitan body with the mandate and budget to plan all modes together, insulated from the three-year and six-year election cycles that keep resetting our plans.

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) hardly fits the bill. It was designed as a coordinating body, not an integrated transport authority. (Interestingly, both the MMDA and Singapore’s LTA were founded in the same year, 1995.)

None of the above is technically hard. The binding constraint is political will sustained across administrations—something our leaders have rarely managed.