OPINION

Time to come clean

Re: "Cops scrutinise MP's posts", (BP, June 11).

It is unfortunate that Pannika Wanich, the newly elected member of parliament and spokeswoman of the newly established Future Forward Party (FFP), is facing public condemnation as a result of her alleged lese majeste Facebook posts that she posted over a decade ago.

Ms Pannika is also accused -- by some "patriots" -- of having at one time written a poem in Thai, saying that of one of the five things in life that she did not trust was an institution highly revered by Thai people.

Hence, Ms Pannika seems to have no choice but to come clean with a satisfactory explanation for the Thai public in order to clear her good name.

Re: "Ultras vs zombies", (PostBag, June 14).

Given their behaviour and quotes attributed to them in Sanitsuda Ekachai's column, the description -- "right-wing ultra-royalists" would seem perfectly appropriate and one with which they would, I suspect, concur.

I doubt "Leninist" would be equally recognisable by Ms Pannika and her supporters. Nor does "zombie-ism" seem to be part of her political ethos.

On the other hand, it's good to see Khun Vint maintaining his enduring stance of "barking up the wrong tree-ism".

Re: "Pettiness on show by OAG", (Editorial, June 13).

Apart from the outrageous disrespect for thousands of citizens in local communities and their precious environment, the Thai government and its authorities continue to largely ignore the vital need to expand the renewable energy sector.

No more coal-fired power stations should be built in Thailand or anywhere else in the world. The solar and wind sustainable energy generation options are now competitive on purely economic costs and jobs creation alone.

Thailand must take the pathway and transition to a low carbon economy which mitigates against the effects of global warming and dangerous climate change.

Re: "Orwell's classic 1984 turns 70", (Life, June 14).

Pretending that 1984 was very prescient is rather disingenuous. It was, in fact, a quite accurate description of the functioning of the Soviet Union and socialist regimes at the time the novel was written. Not mentioning this is a betrayal of Orwell's thought. I suppose that mentioning the actual topic of 1984 would not sit well with the continuing popularity of Marxist-inspired ideology on campuses and in the left.

If 1984 can be said to be prescient, it is prescient of political correctness, which is derived from the same ideological well. It is not short of its own alternative facts (systemic racism, white privilege, the patriarchy, descent into fascism, etc), which ironically describe our reality as a dystopia, and can be said to be a vast enterprise to rename things: hide away serious problems under innocuous terms, and label innocuous, non-problems or ideological adversaries with threatening or disqualifying terms.

Re: "SRT declares war on budget airlines", (BP, June 13).

If there were a piper cub aircraft service from Prachin Buri's army airfield to Bangkok, no matter what the price, I'd take it. The 26-baht, nearly 3-plus hour trip in either direction is a nightmare out of Ron Serling's old TV series, Twilight Zone. The seasonal heat, the noise, the diesel exhaust flying into the coaches behind those old, black smoke belching locomotives, windows jammed either open or closed, smokers lighting up while the security guards and train personnel pass them by indifferently, the food hawkers going up and down the isles non-stop causing bottlenecks, and whatever else one can add to this list, welcome to it.

The SRT doesn't have to declare war on budget airlines. It simply needs to clean up its act, almost 30 years too late. This is due to myopic management, nothing innovative. Frankly, no one gave a damn then, no one gives a damn now. The SRT is fighting a losing battle. Why has someone suddenly woken up? Does a lack of revenue mean a decrease in the salaries for lazy, office-bound bureaucrats? In 25 years, I have never had the courtesy of one reply to a letter of complaint. It's the old Thai rationale. Don't talk about a problem. This means it doesn't exist. If the SRT goes under on the Aranyaprathet-Bangkok line, I'll do what most people prefer doing… drive to Bangkok and back. I tried it a few times. It's quick, easy, inexpensive.

Does anyone remember the days when, if you needed information from a company, all you had to do was call a customer service number, and a live operator would pick up a phone with "Good morning, this is xyz company. How may I help you?"? Today one must fill out an internet form and leave an internet address and phone number. After pressing "submit", an automated response tells you that you will receive an answer within a few hours. Ha! I have never received a response to a request in a few hours, a few days, or a few months. I wonder if after pressing submit, the entire file goes into a trash bin.

Re: "Frenchman's music not to the regime's ears", (Commentary, June 14).

As noted, it was most thoughtful of the officials involved to boost the popularity of the Frenchman's song, which I would never otherwise have heard of. Like Rap Against Dictatorship's wonderfully honest Thai musical masterpiece Prathet Ku Mee, now at 66 million views on YouTube, the boost from official notice for Yan Marchal's honest lyrics is an official blessing. But why would anyone think anyone... should apologise for honesty?

What sort of people think honesty a bad thing? If there is something rotten here, it is not Mr Marchal's Thai spelling mistakes.

I am a farang who comes to Thailand frequently and uses taxis for transport. I was led to believe that taxis are to use meters and must not refuse a fare. How come when you want to go to a destination which costs 90 baht from Silom to Yannawa, the taxi driver says 200 baht. When I say by meter, the taxi driver says no and drives off. This is not good for Thailand's tourism and something must be done to eliminate this problem from the taxi industry.

Re: "Joint force raids luxury island villas", (BP, June 13).

Those remarkable facilities have been in operation since 2011. Does this mean ignorance and negligence on the part of concerned authorities?

Why on earth is the Bangkok Post promoting elephant abuse ("A Majestic Occasion", June 9) In one picture at the ceremony you can see two men sitting in a chair which goes across the elephant's spine and that can cause terrible spinal injuries to the elephant.

And please don't tell me your newspaper is not aware of the horrific training techniques that are used to train the elephants to give rides. Google "elephant riding crushing". Here in Chiang Mai, many agencies which promote elephant tourism now have signs reading: "No Riding". Why does your newspaper continue to promote the primitive and barbaric abuse of elephants?

When I decided in 1964 to settle in Thailand, I was already a seasoned traveller, having lived three months in Turkey (1954), six months in Iran (1955), 15 months in India (1955/56), three years in Laos (1959/1962), and two years in South Vietnam (1962/1964).

When a left Saigon in August 1964 for Bangkok, I did not know a single Thai person. But two British journalists I befriended in South Vietnam at that time warned me to enter Thailand only with a non-immigrant visa, which I did, since it was not too difficult for me to obtain one after having been a stringer in Laos for Reuters and The Associated Press Agency, plus being part-time reporter and editor for two French dailies -- Journal d'Extreme-Orient and Le Vietnam Nouveau -- between 1962 to 1964.

Without anyone sponsoring me, I gave myself one month before making any move in order to study the new context before deciding to launch my request for permanent residency in Thailand, a country where I had spent 10 days in 1956 and two weeks in 1962.

I quickly understood that if I acted without any help at all, I was doomed to fail Indeed, I had heard about cases when applicants had lodged their request with the proper officer in charge and then waited until three months passed to receive an official registered mail asking them to leave the country in 48 hours. What had happened was that the officer in charge had convinced himself that the applicant would not follow the tradition with at least a small present.

That is why during that month of observation I had given myself I went looking for help and was lucky enough to meet a retired immigration police officer willing to help me since he liked me with only a thousand baht for all little costs incurred. Three weeks later, I had become an immigrant with life residency.

That status means two booklets, one for settling as a lifelong immigrant, and the other an alien identity card which must be officially stamped and signed at my local police station every five years. The process takes less than 24 hours and costs 800 baht. If I travel abroad, I must leave with a re-entry visa. In case of problems abroad, I can request assistance from any Thai embassy, except in the country where I am a legal citizen.

I have lost count of how many parties form the coalition that elected the PM. I suspect it might be a world record.

Answers, please.