SINGAPORE – When Ms Carmen Ortega, a 39-year-old private hire driver, posted a video on social media in response to a viral clip of migrant workers being berated at a void deck, she did so because she wanted to “share my truth”.
In that earlier video, which emerged on social media platforms in mid-October, a man confronts at least three migrant workers resting on mats at the void deck of a Housing Board block.
He questions them repeatedly, asking who had allowed them to sleep there, saying: “Here is not your grandfather’s place, OK. This is not nice, you know.” Before walking away, he adds: “You all are all no use.”
Ms Ortega, a Singaporean who runs the Instagram page Confessions Of A Grab Driver, told The Straits Times she felt compelled to respond after seeing the clip.
“I feel for them,” she said of migrant workers. “Grab drivers face the same stigma too. People have so many misunderstandings.”
Her Instagram reel, which was posted on Oct 26, has since received more than 11,800 likes, 585 comments and 1,400 reposts. On TikTok, the video has been viewed over 203,000 times.
In a video that emerged in mid-October, a man confronts at least three migrant workers resting at a void deck, telling them “you all are all no use”.
PHOTO: SINGAPOREINFLUENCEVIRAL/TIKTOK VIA STOMP
It features a compilation of clips of migrant workers cleaning rooftops, sweeping streets, performing late-night maintenance in road tunnels and keeping public spaces tidy, often at ungodly hours. It also showed their cramped living conditions and early morning routines.
