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His eyes light up as he recalls those times.
Speaking in Hokkien, he says: 'The beer garden ladies in Tekka, where I used to drink after work, would call me 'yan dao' (handsome). They wanted to introduce girls to me.'
Today, he is pushing 80, nursing high blood pressure and lives alone in a one-room rental flat in Bendemeer.
He is also among the 3,000 or so Singaporeans on the dole. Like him, they are unable to work and have no close kin to fall back on for support.
Most are old, but there are younger ones - including the chronically ill or disabled, widows with small children, and orphans.
The State steps in to help.
A single person living alone gets a $290 monthly cash allowance while a family with three school-going children can get $940.
For instance, Madam Mary Ng, 52, and her husband Lian Peng Mau, 69, receive $490 altogether.
She is mentally ill, while he has not worked since an accident in his teen years robbed him of two digits on his left hand. Today, he has health problems, including a swollen and black left leg.
The plight of Public Assistance (PA) recipients like them was raised in Parliament last week by two MPs.
Raise the allowance in line with rising prices, Marine Parade GRC MP Seah Kian Peng argued.
Jurong GRC MP Halimah Yacob wanted more needy folk to come under the PA scheme.
Elaborating to Insight, she says these would be people who are ill and unable to work, and whose family members do not earn enough to support them.
'Now they qualify only for short-term help which is reviewed every three months. But they need something more long-term,' she says.
In Parliament, Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said his ministry was closely monitoring the impact of rising prices on PA recipients.
The scheme is being reviewed and the process will likely be completed by year-end, while a committee has been set up to review appeals for financial assistance.
It is made up of MPs, and headed by Minister of State (Community Development, Youth and Sports) Yu-Foo Yee Shoon.
He also stressed that the cash amount is not meant to be all that a recipient lives on. Here is where the community can step in.
But calls for the Government to raise the dole amount keep surfacing in Parliament and The Straits Times Forum page.
What sort of quantum do recipients and better-off Singaporeans think is sufficient?
And what challenges and issues remain in the ongoing efforts to support this group of citizens who cannot rely on anyone, not even themselves?
Weaving the safety net
SINGAPORE'S safety net system began taking shape in 1959, when the People's Action Party (PAP) came to power.
It overhauled the public assistance scheme inherited from the British to staunch mounting expenditure on social assistance.
One big change it made was to allow only citizens, and the unemployable on PA.
It meant booting some 2,000 youngsters who were healthy, but jobless, from the system.
So attention was turned to the jobless - they got help searching for jobs, and incentives if they signed up for one.
The Social Welfare Department, which was in charge of social assistance, also channelled funds to families on PA to start their own businesses and to get them to be self-reliant.
These efforts were burnished by sparkling economic growth - double digit in some years - which provided employment to almost everyone, even the lowly skilled.
By 1981, PA numbers had been whittled down by half - from 8,915 in 1971 to 4,580 a decade later.
In 1981, 92 per cent were old folk above the age of 60, who were receiving a total of $3.16 million.
By then, the Government had cemented its position on the dole, in line with its aim of steering clear of being a welfare state.
The driving principles behind public assistance, like other forms of financial help, were that it would not be overly generous, should not erode the work ethic and should give room for other helping hands in the community.
This is a position that has remained unchanged even today.
This public assistance is seen as relief - and not the full amount that one needs for subsistence.
Small group, big deal
MOST recent figures, from 2006, show that 2,775 people were on PA that year.
Of these, 85 per cent or 2,355 were aged destitutes, and 176 were disabled people below the age of 60.
Altogether, those on the dole form a small section of the bottom 20 per cent of households who the Government helps in other ways.
In the year ending last March, it spent $96 million, benefiting 64,000 individuals and families.
This will go up to $140 million by the end of March this year.
If PA cases are the minority, why are they constantly being brought up?
To be fair, MPs do spend time highlighting the plight of the 100,000 or so households, where working adults earn only around $1,000 a month.
But MPs argue that those on PA will never be able to work and be self-reliant.
The crux of their dispute has to do with definitions of what the State should provide.
Jalan Besar GRC MP Lily Neo says that PA should cover basic needs.
The community should not be providing necessities, but should be giving extras, like free haircuts and even taking people on occasional outings.
'In today's terms, basic needs refer to rental, conservancy charges, utilities bills and three meals a day at a hawker centre,' says Dr Neo, whose Kreta Ayer-Kim Seng ward is home to around 10 per cent or 300 PA cases.
She says this would add up to around $350 a month for one person.
MCYS has not explained how the current PA sum of $290 is calculated.
However, Dr Balakrishnan said last week that it includes a $95 allowance for uncooked food items that will ensure a nutritious diet.
But Dr Neo argues that most elderly folk find eating at hawker centres easier, and cheaper, than cooking at home for one person.
Mr Seah's concern lies more with whether the monthly allowance reflects the rising cost of living.
With inflation tipped to hit 5 per cent, even 6 per cent this year, the amount should go up to $313, he says.
So he wants this review of PA to be speeded up, and a mechanism put in place for regular reviews.
'I do not think this is rocket science and so I hope the 11-month wait for the outcome of this review can be drastically shortened.'
Social work don Irene Ng agrees that the current PA amount is 'insufficient'.
'We need to keep the PA up with cost of living, reconsider what basic necessities are, consider providing assistance to recipients in terms of their overall wellbeing and not just as a minimum standard of financial handout grudgingly given,' says Assistant Professor Ng, who teaches at the National University of Singapore.
Hardly starving
WHILE their allowance is being scrutinised, PA recipients are hardly languishing.
They always make 'the first cut' when it comes to donations, notes Madam Halimah.
They get free meals and food rations from community groups. Households get rental subsidies and rebates on utility and conservancy charges. Individuals get free medical care at polyclinics and government hospitals.
If they need more money, they can turn to the grassroots, which can tap the ComCare Fund. It was set up to ensure no one is left behind as the economy restructures.
Getting on PA is also a smoother process these days.
The five Community Development Councils (CDCs) process cases swiftly, usually within a month. In the interim, MPs can give them some money from ComCare.
Once they are placed on PA the CDCs will usually match them with supplementary services and help schemes like food rations and subsidised transport to clinics and hospitals provided by voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) and community partners.
The Central Singapore CDC handles the most cases - around 1,000 - with South East CDC taking charge of more than 500 others.
But in increasingly affluent Singapore, it is discomforting to many to know that their poorer neighbours are living on $290 a month.
In Hong Kong and Australia, the state dole ranges from around $320 to $760 depending on factors like health and marital status.
But Singapore would not fare too badly, if one were to go by what Dr Balakrishnan said last year.
He pegged the total assistance a PA recipient gets at $2,000 - once the value of cash handouts and other help schemes are toted up.
Beefing up the network
MOST agree that the many helping hands system works. But some kinks remain.
One issue is consistency.
In the case of food rations, for instance, donations spike during the festive season, says Mr Alwyn Chia, communications manager of Lions Befrienders, a VWO.
'Supplies tend to dry up around mid-year but some of what they get during Christmas and Chinese New Year can be kept for later,' he notes.
Staff and volunteers of Lions Befrienders reach out to the lonely elderly by visiting them at least once a week and inviting them to social activities. The organisation helps about 1,000 PA recipients.
But sometimes, recipients do not use what they get.
In Madam Ng's dank one-room flat in Bendemeer, donated food items like packets of rice, instant noodles and biscuits lie unopened.
On the dustball-dotted floor are five stacks of toilet paper, with the plastic wrapping intact.
She says she hardly cooks at home. For 25 days a month the couple get free lunches at the hawker or community centre. They eat out otherwise.
VWOs say they keep tabs on those that they help to make sure the shoe fits, and that they are doing well.
Says Mr Lee Kim Siang, chairman of the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society, a voluntary welfare group: 'Our social workers will go to homes to make sure the rations we give are being used. If they don't need it, then we should give it to others who do.'
Grassroots volunteer Alvin Tan, 27, who helps out in Dr Neo's ward, wants recipients to have an easier time accessing their PA funds.
It is troublesome for some to have to go to the bank, although CDCs, which disburse PA, find bank account details useful.
This is to ensure PA recipients are not suddenly flush with cash, from winning the lottery, for instance.
Mr Tan suggests a facility in the constituency where they can pick up their cash.
Beyond this, a sizeable number of PA recipients could be interviewed, to see what other help they could do with.
Such efforts would go a long way in ensuring that the safety net for the destitute stays as robust as it is today.
E-mail stpol@sph. com.sg or send an SMS to 9827-7514. For SMS messages, type stpol, followed by a space and then your views.
