I refer to Uncle Yap's letter Act calmly on water issue .

The last few paragraphs of the letter betrayed his self-proclaimed "objective" observation. He started off neutral enough, but went substantially off-tangent when criticising Singapore using a weak and stale argument. As such, the content of his letter is just a re-hashing of what Singaporeans have been reading from the Malaysian press all this while.

There are also a number of errors in his letter. Firstly, Singapore did not offer to pay 12 sen per thousand gallon of raw water. The figure was bandied by Singapore purely as a mathematical outcome should one follow the clauses of the water agreements strictly.

Secondly, it was Malaysia who first suggested going for international arbitration to resolve the water issue. Singapore has always been willing to discuss ways to resolve the water issue. It was the Malaysians who kept moving the goal-posts during the negotiation process.

As to the writer's accusation of Singapore being too legalistic, may I ask him how else Singapore should base its arguments on? By public sentiment? By astrology?

Assuming the writer is right that the "damage per Singapore family" by agreeing to Malaysia's demand is just a plate of char kway teow , why can't the Malaysian be a "good neighbour" (to borrow a phrase from the Malaysia press) and forgo it? Can Singaporeans take this insistence to mean that Malaysia is being uncompromising (to use the writer's word) and even petty?

Frankly, Singapore did not get to its present position by being foolhardy with its finances. Even if we are talking about a bean sprout (per family), I would want my government to scrutinise the reason for the expenditure!

Finally, I would urge the writer to speak for himself when he presumed that his Singapore friends and relatives would "not relish the prospect of drinking Newater". For his information, the acceptance of Newater in Singapore has been a phenomenal success, exceeding the Singapore government's expectation. The one millionth bottle of Newater was produced recently.

Finally, my guess for The Straits Times ' refusal to publish his letter is not because it is "anathema to the hysteria of the mainstream press", but rather due to the staleness of the content.