Opinion
The Thaiger Opinion Columns
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Sponsored How to reduce out-of-pocket medical expenses in Thailand?
Managing medical expenses in Thailand is important as healthcare costs continue to rise. The country’s healthcare system includes both public and private options, but even with the Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS) for citizens, many still face high out-of-pocket medical expenses....
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Phuket Opinion: Airports welcoming pros, avoiding cons
Angkarn Yasanop, 29, graduated from the Sampran Royal Police Cadet Academy in Nakhon Pathom in 2007. After he served as an immigration officer at Phuket International Airport, he was moved to Phuket Town to work as an immigration office Sub-Inspector. Here he discusses the need to pair swift immigration processing at the airport with sufficient security. PHUKET: People are working…
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Phuket Opinion: Deputy PM adds insult to injury
PHUKET: Recent protests over inflammatory comments made in Chiang Mai by controversial Deputy Prime Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi are just one small reflection of growing national unease with the administration of Yingluck Shinawatra. In an address to the people of Chiang Mai, Deputy PM Plodprasop said the refusal of the people of Phuket to elect a Pheu Thai Party candidate would…
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Phuket Opinion: Stop the tour bus insanity
PHUKET: The latest crash of a tour bus descending into Patong highlights yet again the need for tour bus operators – and drivers in particular – to take personal responsibility for the safety of passengers under their care. If it can be considered as such, the only good fortune in this latest tragedy is that no lives were lost and…
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Phuket Opinion: Coordinate manpower to corral illegal taxis
Manaporn Likitmanon, a 31-year-old Songkhla native, was a Police Investigator at Samut Sakhon Immigration from 2008 to 2012 before returning south last year to become a Highways Police Inspector covering the tri-province area of Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi. Here he talks about how to solve the problem of metered and illegal taxis in Phuket. PHUKET: We have received many…
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Phuket Opinion: Let the taxis go free
PHUKET: I saw many things of interest in Bangkok last week, including a woman riding a motorbike with a squirrel on her shoulder. But the sweetest sights of all were the little red lights that peeped out here and there between tuk-tuks, trucks and cars on the busy streets of the capital. They spelled out waang in Thai, or “free”…
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Phuket Opinion: Finding a cure for overloaded courts
Parinya Chaowalittawin, 45, took up the position of Chief Judge at Phuket Provincial Court on April 1. Originally from Trang, Judge Parinya has Bachelor’s of Law, Barrister-at-law and Master of Law degree from Ramkhamhaeng University. He has served as a judge for 17 years. Here, he explains what needs to be done to help clear the backlog of cases at…
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Phuket Opinion: Keeping pace with disaster
PHUKET: The construction of a wall along Kamala Beach that could be a barrier during an emergency evacuation once again highlights the need for constant vigilance and above all, common sense in the never-ending preparation for a tsunami or other natural disaster. Few places on Phuket were hit harder than Kamala, where the bathymetry and onshore topography allowed the surging…
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Phuket Opinion: Tourist abduction, another sign of transport greed
PHUKET: The allegations of abduction of a female Chinese tourist by an illegal taxi driver operating out of Phuket International Airport once again highlight the need for a comprehensive overhaul of Phuket’s arcane, baroque and disreputable “public transport system” (story here). The shocking allegations against “independent” taxi driver Paitoon Kruain could not have come at a more conspicuous time: just…
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Phuket Opinion: Proactive CCTV use necessary to protect resorts
Phuket Tourism Association (PTA) Vice President Bhuritt Maswongssa, 51, is also the Vice Chairman of the Patong Resort hotel. He received law degrees from both Ngee Ann College in Singapore and Ramkhamhaeng University in Thailand. In the wake of a recent spate of hotel robberies across the island, he discusses how to boost hotel and resort security. PHUKET: More than…
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Phuket Opinion: For the Love of Bob
PHUKET: Many years ago, backpacking through Malaysia, I found myself at a hostel one night swapping stories and listening to a fellow traveller playing guitar and singing.When the dreadlocked musician asked if any of us had any requests I jumped in with “play some Bob Marley” assuming that he would have at least a dozen Marley songs in his repertoire.His…
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Phuket Opinion: Meth-ods for drug abuse prevention
PHUKET: Dr Ruangsit Netnuanyai, the psychiatric social worker who runs the drug treatment center at Vachira Phuket Hospital, is absolutely right that more needs to be done to prevent youths from falling into the potentially fatal trap of drug abuse (story here). As he notes, this effort should start with the most commonly abused substance among young Thais: methamphetamine, known…
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Phuket Opinion: Looking for privacy for Phuket’s addicts
Psychiatric Social Worker Dr Ruangsit Netnuanyai, 36, is a Phuket native who has been working at Vachira Phuket Hospital for 13 years. He is the head of the drug-treatment program at Vachira and also does research on drug treatment for young addicts. Here, he talks about drug addiction in Phuket and calls for a new drug-treatment center and drug education…
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Phuket Opinion: Finding life balance through Daodexinxi
Sopin Koaysomboon, a 53-year-old Phuket native, is a vice president of the Phuket Daodexinxi International Club. She has been practicing Daodexinxi for more than three years. Here, she talks about how to improve our lives with exercise, meditation, songs and charity. PHUKET: People in the modern world are making a great deal of unnecessary sacrifices. Youths give up their vital…
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Phuket Opinion: Tourist Court, another pie in the sky
PHUKET: Recent talk of establishing a special court to fast-track legal cases involving foreign visitors raises some interesting issues, but at the end of the day is unlikely to result in little more than that: just talk. The reasons put forward to establish such a court are probably well-intended and certainly easy enough to understand. Thailand’s tourism industry is a…
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Phuket Opinion: Year-long road safety in Phuket
PHUKET: The nationwide Songkran Seven Days of Danger road-safety campaign was deemed to be a raging success on Phuket, with only one fatality on the island’s roads during that period. The strong police presence and abundance of police checkpoints definitely made a difference. But the checkpoints have vanished along with the police. Is that their work for the year done?…
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Phuket Opinion: Partners for life
Jeerattakarn Nuannum, 30, was born in Phuket and graduated from Phuket Rajabhat University. After joining Phuket’s renowned Simon Cabaret Show as a performer in 2002, the Phuket native became a fashion model at Phuket Pop Top Model in 2008. Here, Jeerattakarn explains what rights the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community expect to be granted if Thailand moves ahead…
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Phuket Opinion: Speak up for public transport
Jaturong Kaewkasi, a 41-year-old native of Pattani, has been the Chief Transport Technician of the Phuket Land Transport Office for one year. He has a master’s degree in Social Development from Yala Rajabhat University and before coming to Phuket worked as a transport technician in Bangkok. Here, he talks about how to convince people to use buses in order to…
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Phuket Opinion: Plenty to do, if you can get there
PHUKET: Participants in popular online forums indicate that long-time expatriate residents of Phuket tend to decry the changes that have transformed the island over the past two decades, yet fail to appreciate many of the positive developments that have taken place over the same period. In this space since 1994, we have chronicled, criticized and editorialized – often in futility…
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Phuket Opinion: Paradise found
PHUKET: I lived on Racha Yai Island for five years, teaching English to the staff at the luxury resort there, and I support the local conservation group that wants to ensure that restaurants and hotels deal properly with their wastewater and garbage, and allow streams to flow freely to the sea.I love nature, but I’m no enviro-activist. I don’t have…
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Phuket Opinion: Taking responsibility for Phuket’s garbage
Environmental specialist Nutthakrit Polpetch, 45, is the director of the Phuket office of Natural Resources and Environment. He has a bachelor’s degree in Forestry from Kasetsart University. A native of Phattalung, he has lived in Phuket for 20 years. Here he talks about how managing organic garbage in Phuket can reduce garbage and also create useful products. PHUKET: I am…
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Phuket Opinion: Let Songkran sanity prevail
PHUKET: As this edition arrives at newsstands across the island, readers can judge for themselves whether the Royal Thai Police are adequately enforcing the controversial nationwide ban on using pickups and other conveyances to fuel roadside water fights over the Songkran holidays.We sincerely hope that the ban will have a significant impact on the number of deaths and injuries related…
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Phuket Opinion: Solving water problems with rain, prisoners, and solar
PHUKET: Many places on this planet, including Phuket, are going through one of the driest spells of the last decade. My home state of Colorado is no exception. Denver, the state’s capital, only two weeks ago declared a stage-two drought, based on a scale on which four is an emergency.With its two prime reservoirs at 59% and 73% capacity (sound…
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Phuket Opinion: Forever at the mafia’s mercy
PHUKET: The proposal by the chief of the Phuket Marine Office to launch a “sea taxi” to ferry passengers between Patong and Phuket International Airport deserves credit for innovation, but appears somewhat impractical. There can be no doubt that visiting tourists need – and fully deserve – better public transport options between Phuket Airport and west coast resort destinations. The…
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Phuket Opinion: Toothless, but no fairy
PHUKET: The other day I had the unpleasant middle-aged experience of breaking a tooth. Not just any tooth, but the right incisor tooth. Alfred E Neuman, eat your heart out. By some amazing stroke of luck, the tooth had broken off but the root stayed intact, which made my experience relatively painless and gave me the chance to consider my…
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Phuket Opinion: Fuelling the tyranny of greed
PHUKET: It is high time for authorities to take serious steps to crack down on oil smuggling in Thai waters. The latest reported case in Phuket revealed itself in the most noxious of fashions last week, when the 20-meter fishing trawler Premika sank in the shallow waters of Klong Tah Jeen, allowing much of its cargo of tens of thousands…
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Phuket Opinion: Semi-naked is not an option
PHUKET: We’ve all been there – standing in front of the refrigerated dairy section in a local supermarket, wondering if the locally-made unsalted butter tastes anything like the imported variety when suddenly a mountain of skin reaches up for yogurt, displaying a dark bush of underarm hair and way too many freckles. “Hey mister, this is my local supermarket! If…
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Phuket Opinion: Stray dog ‘final solution’ should take a pounding
John Dalley is Phuket’s well-known founder of the Soi Dog Foundation, a not-for-profit, legally registered charitable organization in Thailand, the United States, Australia, the UK, France and Holland. Here, Mr Dalley replies to Phuket Livestock Chief Weerasit Putthipairoj’s public policy that strays should be rounded up from Phuket’s streets and impounded. PHUKET: In response to the comments made by Weerasit…
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Phuket Opinion: Draining Phuket turtle power
PHUKET: It would be difficult to find a more depressing issue than the plight of the various sea turtle species that face extinction in local waters, some of which are also at risk of disappearing from the planet completely (story here). Sea turtles are an integral, but fast disappearing, part of Phuket’s natural heritage. Older generations of Thais will remember…
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Phuket Opinion: Housing boom making snail mail slower
Boonsong Maneechai, 52, from Nakhon Sri Thammarat, served as Postmaster of the Thaweewong Post Office in Patong for four years before becoming the Postmaster of the Rawai Office in 2009. Here, he talks about why the residents of Rawai and Chalong have been experiencing mail delivery delays, and outlines the steps he is taking to correct the problem. PHUKET: The…
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Phuket Opinion: Awesome Phuket
PHUKET: As I’m sitting with friends on the way to see James Bond Island and Koh Panyee (the floating sea gypsy village), bouncing to and fro in our wave-battered dinghy, a thought occurs to me: living here ain’t half bad.In order to bring our focus back to why we came here in the first place, I offer you just a…
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