Agnes Lam (center)
Members of Agnes Lam’s Civil Watch list yesterday went to the Legislative Assembly Election (CAEAL) to deliver the candidate list as well as the political program proposed by the group for September’s Legislative Assembly (AL) election.
Speaking to the media, Lam noted that the list she heads presented a political program consisting of eight major topics. Health and environmental protection were strongly emphasized.
According to Lam, one factor which distinguishes her list from the others is the fact that it includes a good number of professionals from different sectors who are interested in cooperating to introduce evidence-based opinions and proposals to improve Macau.
“We are more professional. We study very hard on the policy issues. The platform we delivered today, it’s composed of eight areas, each one with key issues that we identified as the key problems that we need to solve in the future,” Lam said. “We are the kind of people who are able to do research and to understand the issue and try to come up with the solution [based on the research results]. This is one of the significant [characteristics] of our group,” she added.
Among the identified problems are matters relating to the health system, perhaps due to the fact Lam’s second and third numbers are both physicians. One of the group’s proposals in this field relates to supporting the elderly through a “community medical service”. This service would avoid the need for senior citizens to seek medical check-ups or similar services in the public hospitals and health care centers, when these services could, in the group’s opinion, be provided at their homes.
A “professional accreditation” especially for physicians is another of the topics advocated by Civil Watch. Civil Watch says that there is currently no such accreditation in the territory, and instead all physicians are accredited in “general medical practice.”
Confident about the election, Lam said, “this time we are more prepared and I personally gained a lot of experience from the last two times I was running. […] I learned more about how to engage with people, voters and how to address different issues.”
Besides health, environmental protection is also one of the group’s concerns, with several of the group’s members being engaged in environmental associations.
When asked whether she had obtained the support of China’s Communist Party for her list, Lam said she did not know if she had their support or not, stating, “I don’t know if they support my candidacy. Nobody informed me if they support me and I didn’t get approached by anyone from the party,” she said. After being questioned repeatedly by journalists on the issue, she confirmed that she continues to be a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Hebei where she has been a member for over 10 years. As for her relationship with the Liaison Office, Lam said she intends “to keep [strictly] business relations with them.”
Candidate dismisses academic freedom concerns
Questioned about academic freedom within the University of Macau (UM) where Agnes Lam teaches, she noted there are no university-imposed restrictions on conducting research. However, Lam affirmed that the case is less clear regarding travel to Taiwan in the course of research. “It’s normal that you have to report on your activities when you are travelling on public funding,” she said, adding that the principle applies to Taiwan and elsewhere. “If you are using public money I think it is normal that you need to report. It happens anywhere and in any public service,” she noted, reaffirming the university’s total freedom in research and dedication to “keep the privacy and anonymity of the sources.”
