In Continuum.

His name, is Mas Selamat bin Kastar, Singapore's most wanted man right now. The former terrorist was arrested by the Indonesian police on the island of Bintan in January 2006 I believe, and was later transferred to Singapore after being charged for planning a terrorist attack on Singapore Changi Airport, as reported in the papers. Just your average terrorist, trying to make a point by killing a whole lot of innocent people, claiming to be on a holy war but really on a glorious trip to prove his stupidity. He looks like any other terrorist really, in fact any random guy you can pick off the streets, and the idea of that is a little scary to be honest. I mean, it makes anybody a possible terrorist, since there isn't a template for those group of extremists. Anybody then becomes a time bomb, anybody can be do a detrimental blow to the country's security. So you can imagine just how glad and relieved the Singaporean government when he was arrested, and so was the rest of the world I am sure. I mean, one terrorist caught is one terrorist less, though new ones are recruited on a daily basis. We like to ignore that fact, I like to ignore that fact. I guess, we all like to think that with every arrest, the world is changing into a better place an arrested terrorist at a time.

So things were fine an dandy for two years, with him locked up in a detention camp up in Whitley, which is just down the road from my house. Somehow, he managed to sneak out of the detention center during a bathroom break, though the word 'sneaking' would be exaggerating it a little bit. This terrorist dude simply walked out of the detention center, then disappeared into the crowd without the guards finding out until it was too late. Well, to be fair, he didn't actually walk out of the place - he limped. His picture is plastered all across the front page over every newspaper and every website, the government working like ants on a pan over this case, and using a euphemism like a "security lapse" to describe this case, when it really should be "a joke of biblical proportions". Here is a man who has been locked up in a supposedly maximum security detention center, with the elites guarding him for twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. He limped out of the place without any resistance, and here you are wondering where did all the money of the tax-payers go off to.

I mean, Singapore has advanced to a stage whereby it is no longer worried about hardcore economical developments. Of course, the government here is still an avid fan of money, every government around the world is. But we are not so concerned about building a country as we were forty years ago, but focusing our cash flow on things like building a casino, building more expressways, building more MRT stations, bid for the Youth Olympics and the F1 Race, stuff like that. It is a natural step to take when you have advanced this far, to focus on ways to boost your international status. A lot of money has gone into the pockets of our government officials, considering the fact that our prime minister earns even more than the president of the United States annually, to other countries it might seem rather absurd. Still, I don't suppose there is anything wrong, considering how well this country is being moving forward, I guess it hardly matters if our officials have higher salaries or not. 

However, the least we demand for in a society, in fact in any society, is the sense of security. It is the safety that counts in the foundation of every civilization, and you cannot move forward to anything else if you do not have that brick placed into the wall. When we have these "security lapses" going on in our country, it's just very disappointing as a tax-payer to see that our money has not been put to good use, such as building a more secure detention center to house the most dangerous criminal in Singapore, for example. When detention centers no longer serve their purposes in keeping the criminals inside, the security in the country is gone, and nothing should move forward after that. 

I mean, this terrorist didn't even put up a fight to get out of the place. He did not stab the guards with a pen he smuggled out of somebody's pocket, neither did his terrorist friends try to help him escape through a tunnel dug underneath his cell. He certainly did not smash the head of the guards with a baton, or rip the guard's face off and then pretend to be an injured so as to be sent off in the back of am ambulance. He did not tie the dead body of the guard up on the bars of his cell, and he certainly did not do anything else that resembled Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs. He, very simply, limped out of the place. I remember looking over the metal fences and the barb wires in the perimeter of my army camp, and wondered how would somebody escape from a camp like that? I have thought of a few escape routes, but only because I was bored out of my mind doing those dreadful guard duties. I couldn't have walked out of the camp despite not being a prisoner, but here we have a prisoner who limped out of the detention center like an ordinary man visiting his friend. This news is all over the front pages of major newspapers overseas, and the government is frantic.

I can imagine those poor army boys in the national service right now, or those police officers forced to work overtime for this terrorist dude. This is the part the government calls "situation containment". I call this part the "ass wiping", because they are trying to clean up the mess. A mad man, though unarmed, running about the streets of Singapore with the knowledge and ability to make bombs out of normal everyday items. Here is a man who should have been locked up in a prison for the rest of his life, not making bombs in a shady corner of the island with a bottle of shampoo, a deodorant, and a few fire-starters and sparklers (I highly doubt that these are the ingredients for a bomb, though). Army boys and police officers are roaming the streets for yet another island-wide manhunt after that David incident, the guy that ran away from camp with a rifle and a few rounds he stole. They never learned from their mistakes, and this time it has gotten out of hands.

It's just a little ironic to see such a crisis happening in the country, when they have been talking so much about being a supporter for the war against terror, and how they have always been a front-runner in the region to help eradicate terrorist organizations. Here we have, though, such a thing happening that really shouldn't have occurred. This must have been an incident of lazy guards, falling asleep on their jobs or simply disappearing from their posts for a bite at the canteen, whatever. It is a human error we are dealing with here, and somebody needs to be fired for this 'security lapse'. I am not exactly afraid that my bus to school would be hijacked tomorrow morning, since I do not suppose this man to be stupid enough to do such a thing. I believe that those guys out there on the streets now are going to catch this guy, since Singapore really doesn't have a lot of places to hide. It isn't a very big island to begin with, and you are monitoring every single possible escape routes - what are the odds of him swimming to Indonesia anyway? 

It's just that this whole incident is somewhat of a joke, a joke that should not be tolerated by the people who paid good money to have our lives secured. We need a safe environment to live in, not one with terrorists running about because they were given the opportunity during a toilet break. The perfect prison break this time around, a modern-day Houtini should not be tolerated in the vicinity of a prison. I think we deserve to have our safety guaranteed, judging from the amount of tax we pay to the government each year. A detention center with thicker bars and more guards really isn't a lot to ask for, is it? I do hope, for the sake of the government, that this guy is still on the island of Singapore. Because if he has already successfully escaped to another country, it would then turn into an even greater joke than it already is.