🇲🇾 Farewell to a childhood icon

Hello friends!

I am fresh off the back of the Splice Beta conference in Chiang Mai which blew my little brains. I ended up with a hellish cold for the remaining week so missed out on many of the social events and checking out Chiang Mai (and my poor nasal cavity became reacquainted with the antigen test). 

There have been some excellent post-conference emails from the newsletter gang and I’m going to borrow their idea and have one of my own later this week. Their shout-outs have sent DOZENS of new readers over here so I’ve made today’s premium newsletter open to all so you can have a bit of a taste of what Dari Mulut ke Mulut does. Thank you so much for joining us! I will warn this week is about 600 words longer than usual as I catch up after my Netflix-fever-dream of last week. 

As always, free premium subscriptions for all Asean nationals and Timorese under 30, so if that includes you please let me know by hitting reply. 

Would also like to reshare Deborah’s stunning short essay on the LGBT community in Malaysia as part of our election coverage. There is more to come this week.

See you then,

Erin Cook

🇲🇾 Thanks for the memories

Pang Chin Hin, the creator of Mamee noodles, died in Malaysia this week at 96. As one reply to BFM’s tweet says, he gave Malaysian kids their childhood. 

The childhood cult of Mamee noodles extends beyond Malaysia. I grew up in a family of Catholic misers more interested in paying for their numerous children to have braces than cool lunchbox snacks. We never got to have Mamee noodles — up there with roll-ups and those hideous little Nutella things in the playground currency of the 90s. So, I must confess, as an adult with no braces to pay for and blessed to be travelling around the region I have eaten Mamee at any opportunity. 

Pang Chin Hin also invented the ubiquitous brand Mister Potato Chips and Double Decker shrimp crackers, BFM News reports. 

🇵🇭 Arrests and some shocking answers

A staggering update from the Philippines following the killing of radio journalist Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa last month. 

Gerald Bantag, the suspended bureau of corrections director general, and his deputy security officer Ricardo Zulueta were behind the shocking death, police allege. AFP reports that in the weeks leading up to his death, Mabasa had alleged Bantag of corruption during a radio show. Bantag then ordered the killing to prevent “continued exposé by the latter of the issues against the former on his show,” the National Bureau of Investigation alleges. 

The disgraced jail man is also alleged to have ordered the killing of Cristito Palaña, the gunman in the attack. 

“This time, Jun Villamor (Palaña) was suffocated to death by a plastic bag and held by his own gang members. The unique circumstance shows that the order came from a high official of the BuCor (Bureau of Corrections) … One usually seeks refuge and protection from his own gang members. The fact that they killed one of their own means and indicates that there were instructions from the top and the gang simply had no choice but to execute,” NBI spokesman Eugene Javier told the Inquirer. 

Mabasa’s brother Roy compared the whole horrible event to a telenovela. Thankfully, the Inquirer has a comprehensive timeline of developments available here. 

The fast pace of the investigation is a “good development,” Jonathan de Santos from the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines told AFP. But: “As we have seen, it takes a decade or more to secure a conviction.” De Santos writes his own brilliant Substack which looks at media and journalists in the Philippines and is a must-read. 

It will get much murkier and trickier. 

Bantag was appointed to his post by former president Rodrigo Duterte — infamously no fan of journalists — and that has raised some questions. Mabasa was a vocal critic of his presidency and the war on drugs. Now, his family wonders if that must be investigated. 

For now, Bantag and his accomplices face murder charges and the government is saying the right things. “The case has been filed with our prosecutors and from there we will proceed with the case proper and hopefully this issue will be laid to rest the way that it should be when crime is committed against a citizen of the Republic of the Philippines, especially this time we are talking about a member of media,” Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said yesterday as reported by CNN Philippines.

Elsewhere, the clean-up after the devastating Tropical Storm Nalgae continued over the week. At least 98 people were killed in flooding and landslides, most in the BARMM. 

🇹🇭 Seeing the lights in Chiang Rai

This is the longest I’ve spent in Thailand in one shot and let me tell you. Having that awful thing where the more you learn the more you realise you don’t know a thing at all. Brain-bending stuff, but I have been reading a lot and collating a reading list for a newsletter next month. 

This week is the gorgeous Loy Krathong festival, so tonight I’ll be checking out festivities in Chiang Rai (and keeping my head down).

The Palang Pracharath Party split is deepening by the looks of it, but I’ll leave you in the deft hands of the Thai Enquirer with that one today. I’m a third of the way through an enormous tome on the Deep South and incapable of thinking about anything else in Thailand lest I lose my will. 

🇻🇳 Delete that

After last week’s update on Vietnamese Community Party boss Nguyen Phu Trong heading to Beijing and some musings on what the China-Vietnam relationship looks like now, Mike Tatarski of the fantastic Vietnam Weekly gave me a heads up on this from VN Express. (I also forgot to reply and say thanks, so please consider this a very public show of gratitude, Mike!) 

Please click through to see this graphic because it really is great! A basic timeline of the relationship and an overview of trade links and vaccine diplomacy. 

Social media platforms now have 24 hours to take down content deemed to be ‘anti-state’ by Hanoi. “False news, if it is handled in a slow manner, will spread very widely,” Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung told parliament on Friday, per Reuters. An increase in fines seems to be on the way too. 

I’m shocked this hasn’t been resolved already. Months ago we talked about Vietnam’s new passports not including the place of birth for holders, meaning many countries would not issue visas. I thought it had been quietly resolved. Not so! Public Security Minister To Lam has called on the National Assembly to vote to return the information to the passport and get Vietnamese travelling again. “The addition of birthplace information will not create extra cost or procedures as the information is available in the application forms,” he said, as per VN. 

🇰🇭 Putting on the show

Cambodia is readying for this week’s Asean summit. A show of security with the deployment of 10,000 personnel around Phnom Penh — click through to this VOD English story to see some snaps! 

Very weird story from Thailand where an armed Cambodian army colonel was arrested after driving through the border checkpoint in Khlong Hat District. Sok Banpho, 36, was found carrying weapons and 17 rounds of ammunition after a 17-hour stand-off ended Saturday afternoon. He reportedly had a bit of carry-on about fighting with his wife back home and had no interest in talking with Thai officials. Thai authorities say it’s not a military and/or border issue and will be dealt with legally. Ordinarily, this would be one of those weird blip stories that pop up along the borders, but there are a little too many similarities with last month’s horrific massacre in Thailand that I do think it’s worth touching on. Not to say that’s what was happening here, of course, but well done to all sides for keeping this under control. Will be keeping an eye out for updates but I’m not sure there will be any. 

We’re going to be all about Cambodia next week, so shall leave it there!

🇱🇦 Up, up and more up

I just said ‘holy shit’ out loud at this Xinhua story. Inflation in Laos hit a record high of 36.75% year-on-year in October. Food and drink have climbed even higher with prices up 38.8% annually. Fuel is up 95%. 

In good news, the country is the only Southeast Asian country to feature on National Geographic’s top 25 travel destinations so that will hopefully drive some tourism dollars in the next year. I’m planning on heading over early next year and I’m very excited! 

🇲🇲 Today’s sad anniversary

Read this from Myanmar Now. And then scroll right to the bottom and donate some money if you can swing it. 

Two years ago today marks the election in which the National League of Democracy swept to victory on the back of 27 million votes. It’s a vital milestone because, the Irrawaddy writes, any “election” (their scare quotes) held by the junta in the new year will be a sham and we must remember the voters already told the world what they wanted. 

🇸🇬 Who speaks for Singaporeans?

GST is up to 8% from Jan. 1, the parliament passed this week, with plans to go to 9% in 2024.

That 9% is already controversial. Finance Minister Lawrence Wong has said it will be reviewed in the new year given the expected economic chaos in the months ahead. Workers’ Party MP Jamus Lim pounced, calling the increase “irresponsible.”

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gave the opposition a bit of a roast at the weekend’s People’s Action Party conference. Opposition talks big about the PAP letting down Singaporeans, but when it comes to the big issues — in this case, the repeal of section 377a and the subsequent debate about the place of LGBT Singaporeans in the wider community — where are they? “Why? They do not want to displease anyone – therefore they have gone AWOL (absent without leave). You can’t be AWOL if you want to govern Singapore,” he said, as per Straits Times.

As I’ve recently confessed, I spend a lot of time in Singapore’s various subreddits. This piece from the Independent has compiled some of the better takes (that is, readable) on this and they’re very compelling. The consensus seems to be: Lee may (may) be right in this particular instance, but it’s not tricking anyone that PAP is the liberal voice and, if anything, helps the arguments for a harder-hitting Workers Party. I’ll be very interested to see what develops here in the coming years. The Independent notes a few high-ups in the WP have attended the Pink Dot rallies in recent years, including MP Jamus Lim. 

I’m truly curious to see what happens here. Singapore is by no means a liberal-democracy stronghold of the region, but the politics are far more intriguing than it appears on the surface level. And the history! Every country in the region is changing in fascinating ways and where Singapore heads as generational power shifts is something to watch. 

🇧🇳

I hope Brunei does something interesting in Cambodia this week because I haven’t had much to work with for weeks!

🇹🇱 ‘It’s easier to get into heaven than Asean’

“There is a life beyond Asean,” President José Ramos-Horta told a meeting of business types in Lisbon. (Is literally everyone in Portugal??) “If there are delays in accession, I will go to China to see my friend [Chinese President] Xi Jinping and freeze the process of joining Asean.” 

Extraordinary timing. Indonesia will take over the chair at the end of the Summit in Phnom Penh, and Jakarta has been Timor-Leste’s biggest advocate in getting a seat at the table. “There has been intense work over the last three to five years, they completed the last assessment in June and July, and it was favourable,” he said. He wants in by January but isn’t overly optimistic — “it’s easier to get into heaven than Asean.” 

A Timor-Leste membership is, I think, still quite decisive in Indonesia even if supported by the foreign policy wonks. Based solely on Twitter (not a fantastic barometer, I agree), there remains, in some quarters, quite a lot of upset about Timorese independence. We’ll see what happens!

🇮🇩 President Jokowi is ready for the world

As I said last week, we’re reaching peak G20! 

It is a bit strange after years of President Joko Widodo’s disinterest in foreign policy and the world to watch him seize this opportunity so strongly. His priorities — upping trade, primarily — are still true to form, but he appears much more confident in both his and Indonesia’s positioning. 

There are some intriguing political movements afoot. But, largely, I think given how the election will dominate next year it’s best to wait until at least after Malaysia has their turn! I’m a fiend for the drama so plan to relaunch the 2019 pop-up election emailer Ayolah early in the new year.