National Day Rally to cover how S'pore can secure future: PM

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will speak about Singapore's experience during the Covid-19 pandemic and set out how the country can secure its future at the National Day Rally tomorrow.

He said this in a brief trailer posted on Facebook yesterday, which showed the preparations for his speech at ITE College Central in Ang Mo Kio.

"When I first spoke (at ITE College Central) in 2013, I said the venue underscored my commitment to investing in everyone in this country, and emphasised that Singapore was at a turning point. Today, this is truer than ever."

PM Lee noted that this is the first year since the onset of Covid-19 when he could do the Rally at full scale. He had delivered his Rally speech in a Mediacorp studio last year, while the event was called off in 2020.

Associate Professor (Practice) Terence Ho from the National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy expects PM Lee to speak about the geopolitical situation this year, given the rising tensions between the United States and China.

"PM is also likely to address inflationary pressures and the cost of living, which is top of mind for many Singaporeans," said Prof Ho, adding that there could be an update on Singapore's Covid-19 situation and the Government's approach to handling the pandemic.

Dr Lynn Kuok, who is Shangri-La Dialogue senior fellow for Asia-Pacific Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said PM Lee is likely to explain how the Ukraine war is posing serious challenges to the rules-based international order and further complicating US-China relations.

"This has direct implications for peace and stability in the region, but also indirect implications insofar as the cooperation needed from the two most important countries to the region - the United States and China - to address transnational problems and promote growth will be difficult, if not impossible, to come by," she said.

Prof Ho believes another topic likely on the agenda is an announcement on Section 377A of the Penal Code, given that the Government has been preparing the ground for a possible policy change. The law criminalises sex between men.

The Government has been consulting various groups of Singaporeans on Section 377A in recent months. Last month, Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said the Government is considering how best to strike a balance between dealing with the law and safeguarding the current legal position on marriage from challenges in courts.

Prof Ho said: "As many Singaporeans are concerned about whether this would have implications for the traditional model of marriage and family, there has been talk about the possibility of new constitutional safeguards to define marriage. How the Government seeks to balance the divergent views on this matter bears watching at this year's National Day Rally."

The rally will begin at 6.45pm tomorrow.