I don't think that is the point being made at all. I think the writer is pointing out that there are multiple ways of experiencing "Freedom". My experience has been that in the US freedom is often viewed as the sum of permitted personal decisions that can occur without (Or with minimal) government restraint or influence, so typically we focus on things like freedom of speech, the freedom to ride motorcycles without a helmet, the freedom to own guns, the freedom to start a business, the freedom to vote, etc.(And these are just kind of randomly selected from various examples that popped to mind and not meant to be exhaustive). A "rugged individualist" approach to freedom if you will.
Singapore seems to take a "pragmatic collectivist" approach to freedom. Meaning that anti-social behaviour is strongly limited, and those limits are enforced by the power of the government, but the resulting society has a substantial "Freedom from fear" both from a personal safety perspective, and from a "social security" perspective. Now admittedly these tradeoffs are very different from the tradeoffs in the US, but there is certainly a certain freedom from worry that comes along with it.
It's not possible to guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to someone. But I am definitely more free if the government actually prevents (ex-?)criminals from harming me. A sovereign is responsible when criminals harm people; they have the ability to institute high- and low-tech measures to vastly reduce crime. The government I'm familiar with (USG) does very little, because of structural problems.
