Lee Kuan Yew arguably was nobody’s favorite personality.
The former prime minister of Singapore, who died in 2015 at the age of 91, had a prickly, authoritative personal style that rubbed people the wrong way.
On the other hand, he led Singapore from being a poverty-stricken, disease-ridden, remote British trading post early last century to being the lodestar for other South and Southeast Asian nations attempting to break into the, quote-unquote, “modern world”.
In the 1920s, when Lee Kuan Yew was born, Singapore was a British colonial entrepôt and the administrative center of the Straits Settlements, mainly on the Malay Peninsula. In essence, Singapore was an impoverished merchantile center whose inhabitants lived in crowded, unsanitary conditions and faced malnutrition and terrifying epidemics, notably cholera and smallpox.
Its nickname among seamen was “Sin-galore” because of its prostitution and opium dens.
However, visitors to Singapore today are struck by its skyline, its architecture, its public transit, and its immaculately clean streets. This is not to mention the blend of cultures — Chinese, Malays, Indians, Filipinos and Westerners — living together in apparent harmony.
Ask anyone who should get credit for this remarkable transformation, and the name Lee Kuan Yew bubbles to the surface.
Known by the Manila press corps as LKY, Lee was a frequent visitor, and he did not hesitate to express his opinions on the Philippines, which he viewed affectionately as a nation with immense potential, but also as a nation with many missed opportunities.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with his views, they are nonetheless vouchsafed by his immense stature.
And with the Philippine general elections only days away — and with 18,000 political positions at stake — it is timely to reconsider his views.
A recurrent theme in Lee Kuan Yew’s writings and public comments on the Philippines is that its people are “too soft” and “too forgiving”.
For example, in The Philippine Star, he is quoted as saying this about the nation’s political culture:
“Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial. Insignificant amounts of the loot have been recovered, yet his wife and children were allowed to return and engage in politics.”
The Marcos family plundered US$5 billion to $10 billion from the country, according to the Presidential Commission on Good Government, and the current president, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., is Ferdinand Marcos’ only son.
In a speech Lee gave to The Philippine Business Conference in late 1992, he said ordinary Filipinos must understand that “politics is not simply elections with singing, fiestas and giveaways, but that it is about their lives, jobs and wages, homes, schools, [and] hospitals.”
He also said that the American constitution, which was a model for the Philippines’ constitution, has not served the Philippines well. The American constitution is one of the most difficult constitutions in the world to administer, he said.
“[In the American constitution] there is a complete separation of powers between executive, legislature and judiciary. They [the Americans] wrote the constitution in 1787… . They wanted a weak executive president. Having suffered at the hands of King George III of England, they wanted the opposite of a strong monarch. But a developing country faced with disorder and underdevelopment needs a strong honest government.”
He also remarked on the deep influence America has had on Philippine politics and culture, suggesting that while it brought some benefits, it also entrenched a form of elitist democracy — the Rockefellers and the Kennedys, for example — that did not always serve the broader population well.
In his book “From Third World to First: The Singapore Story”, Lee reflected on the Philippines with a mixture of concern and disappointment, especially in contrast to other Southeast Asian nations.
Lee noted that the Philippines during the 1950s and 1960s was one of the most developed nations in Asia.
He said that the Philippines had great potential due to its underutilized natural resources — gold, copper, nickel and chromite — as well as agricultural export potential with crops like rice, coconuts, pineapples, bananas, and abacá.
He also said the Philippines had an educated population and an early economic lead among Asian nations. The country failed to capitalize on these advantages, he said.
Lee pointed to corruption as a major factor holding back the Philippines, and this remains a concern today. For example, in 2024, the Philippines ranked 114th among 180 nations on the Corruption Perceptions Index, according to Transparency International.
Singapore, by contrast, ranked third on the same index.
He also observed that Philippine leaders often pursued popular but economically unsound policies such as “cash-aid programs” and “vote buying” to win elections.
In summary, Lee Kuan Yew saw the Philippines as a nation with immense promise that was undercut by poor leadership, institutional weakness, and a lack of accountability. His comments have been accepted as clear-eyed but critical.
However, lest one be taken in completely by Lee Kuan Yew’s views, it should be noted that there are chinks in his armor.
For example, Singapore is not a liberal democracy like the Philippines. Lee co-founded his political party — the PAP, or the People’s Action Party — in 1954, and it has won a supermajority in every election for the past 60 years.
There’s something wrong with this picture.
Indeed, the PAP rules Singapore with an iron fist, and foreign visitors are met with peculiar laws that exist nowhere else. For example, chewing gum is banned in Singapore, and violators face fines of SGD1,000, or PHP43,000. Littering can result in a fine of SGD2,000, or PHP86,000, and failure to flush a public toilet can result in a fine of SGD150, or PHP6,500.
On a more significant note, the PAP has used legal action such as libel suits to challenge opposition figures, leading to jail time and financial ruin for political opponents. And it has passed draconian laws, like the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, which grants the government the power to demand corrections of online content.
Not to mention that, in a nation that vigorously promotes meritocratic governance, Lee Kuan Yew’s eldest son, Lee Hsien Loong, served for 20 years as Singapore’s third prime minister, from 2004 to 2024.
And Lee Kuan Yew and his son paid themselves well. The annual salary today of the Singaporean prime minister is US$1.6 million, or PHP91 million, the highest by far in the world for a head of state.
So, while Lee Kuan Yew was nobody’s favorite personality, he also was nobody’s fool. He was brilliant, savvy, and self-serving.
Even today, heads of state take Lee Kuan Yew’s writings seriously, viewing him as a visionary whose ideas shaped Singapore’s destiny and provided intellectual nourishment for political leaders.
Bryce McIntyre, PhD, resides in San Andres. He holds a doctoral degree from Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA.