An estate cleaner planting Singapore flags for National Day along Bukit Merah Central was spotted Wednesday evening using what seemed to be a garbage bin to keep the country's national symbols.
Netizen Jeffery Leong, who saw the cleaner and took a photograph, said in a Facebook post that the flags were being transported in a dirty mobile garbage bin.
"This is definitely not the right way!" said Leong.
"The person-in-charge who ask(ed) him to do it obviously did not proper(ly) advise and supervise how our national flags should be treated!" Leong added.
According to the Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Act, it is decreed that no person shall treat the flag with disrespect.
One of the flags was spotted on the grass in front of the mobile garbage truck. This is also against the law as the national flag should not touch the floor or ground.
When contacted, Tanjong Pagar Town Council spokesperson Shirley Aloysius told Yahoo! Singaporethat "the Bukit Merah Merchants Association hired a contractor to put up the national day flags within the town to celebrate National Day".
"The flags were kept in a clean plastic bulk container," said Aloysius.
Phillip Tan, a volunteer with the Bukit Merah Merchants Association added that he supervised the planting of flags last night and said that the mobile garbage bin was used out of convenience.
"We did not want to use a lorry to transport the flags as we had hundred over flags and we would have to move slowly through traffic and might bother other drivers on the road," said Tan.
Tan clarified that the mobile garbage bin was clean and did not dirty the flags.
As a result of the feedback, Tan and his volunteer friends will be using other means to plant the flags on Thursday.
