Malaysia 'upwardly adjusts' prices. No seriously...

Saya gelak apabila terbaca laporan Malaysiakini ini Jumaat lalu - http://malaysiakini.com/news/137516.
Betul ke ada orang kerajaan (bukan PM Najib) yang seram-sejuk takut rakyat marah jika akhbar cakap terus terang?
Lalu saya menulis satu entry untuk Straits Times Blogs - weblog online version akhbar saya.

Tapi lepas tu saya fikir semula: Tak baiklah nampak semacam memperkecilkan Malaysia, jika yang kata gitu hanya orang di bawah. Saya kan sayang negara angkat saya.
Lagipun tak confirm, sebab Malaysiakini suka serang kerajaan walau benda kecil. Tapi jika ada isu pembangkang, Malaysiakini buat tak nampak, semua perfect kalau Anwar-Kit-Hadi.
Malah, katanya, ada seorang editor yang hadir dalam meeting kerajaan tu, tapi depa kata tak dengar pun benda ini.


Lalu saya tak jadi hantar ke straitstimes.com.
Saya post kat bawah sini sajalah. Untuk bahan senyuman kecil.
Sebab saya dah tulis pun, rugi kalau tak pakai.
Yang dinaikkan harga ialah - petrol RON95, RON97, diesel, gas masak LPG dan gula.

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Malaysia 'upwardly adjusts' prices. No seriously.

(New terms to save the Malaysian government)

I was laughing away after reading this report from Malaysiakini (http://malaysiakini.com/news/137516).
Assuming the report to be true, it said that at a briefing for editors of mainstream media before early Friday's price hikes, “media advisors” to Prime Minister Najib Razak told these senior reporters to be careful in choosing how they describe the government's move.
The editors were told, said the opposition-leaning news website, not to use words such as “price hike” or its Malay equivalent “barang naik”, when referring to the rise in subsidised commodity prices.

The government had, in a move to lower the federal budget deficit, raised the prices of petrol, diesel, cooking gas, sugar.
Oops did I say ‘raised’?
The media editors, according to Malaysiakini, were told to use softer words such as "upward price adjustment" or "subsidy rationalisation".
I can just imagine that over the next few weeks, Mat, Ah Chong and Muthu, while enjoying their “upwardly adjusted” price of teh tarik, will indeed use such politically-correct terms.
I am sure that instead of “subsidy cuts”, or its Malay term “subsidi kena potong”, they will discuss at length the “subsidy rationalisation”.
If Malaysiakini’s report is true, of course.

Maybe it has erred.
Because it the report is true, I can imagine what could come next.

1) The next time people want to protest on the streets of KL, perhaps even due to this “upward price adjustments”, the media advisors will tell local editors to be more careful.
After all, foreign investors and tourists could be frightened off by such harsh terms like "street demonstrations", peaceful that they may be.
These "mass protests" are of course almost always held on Fridays, after the weekly Muslim congregational prayers.
So please, you editors, refer to these as “Friday family outings” or “ebullient public gatherings”.

2) Eh wait! I have made a mistake. We cannot refer to our friends from the newspapers and local TV stations as “mainstream media editors” anymore.
That is like saying they are under the thumb of the government.
We should start calling them “senior news sopranos” - because it is their job indeed to make stories sing.

3) And the next time time someone unfortunately got himself “killed while in police custody” (it could be due to pneumonia or bad food), that too is a crude term for these sensitive times.
Why, it could induce an opposition frenzy.
Please, media sopranos, do refer to these poor individuals as having “expired with security”.

4) And websites, such as Malaysiakini, and those, ughh!, horrible bloggers - they have caused such misery to Malaysia with their lies and opinions.
Forthwith, let us call them for what they are, “anti-national rumour mongers” and “dark side cyber-liars”.
Those that report pro-government Facts and Truths (not fiction and lies, mind you) should be supported.
Let us call these “cyber truth bearers” and “truthful jedi-knights”.

5) The government had to make the subsidy rationalisation because the federal budget deficit is at a 20-year high.
Well, surely that word “budget deficit” itself is anathema because the public will have bad vibes about the government.
Why don’t we call it with other names?
Let’s try “tiny shortfall" or "savings weakness".

I could easily go on.
Suffice to say that in the internet age, a government cannot any more hide behind fake niceties in the hope that this would not be spotted, and ridiculed, by the public. Including by cyber media sopranos.
It should let the, errr, mainstream media - much maligned that it is - decide.
Let's call a spade a spade, and deal with it.

The government has said it will save RM750 million from the upward price adjustment .
Let it not just explain, as in the past, where the money saved would be directed.
PM Najib should actually SHOW voters when the money saved is spent - buying new coaches for LRTs perhaps (go visit!), or giving out school books to poor children (do the hand outs!), and or maybe by building low-cost houses (cut ribbons!).
And show that the government is not going to indulge in wasteful showy projects, like in the past.
Then, it wouldn't matter what the subsidy rationalisation had been described on the streets by those protesters.
People would slowly come to accept that in the new Malaysia, everyone is willing to suffer a bit for the sake of the country.

Assuming of course, the Malaysiakini story, is true.
Naaaaah, it can't be true. Those buggers, they're anti-national Darth Vader rumour-mongers!