The knowns and unknowns in David Ong's case of personal indiscretion

By: Ravi Philemon
I am very surprised by Minister Chan Chun Sing’s comments that the PAP acted decisively in the case of former Member of Parliament for Bukit Batok, David Ong. The question everyone would like to ask (I believe) is how so?
There are so many unknowns in the case. But before we go there, this is what we know:

1. David was having an affair with a married woman with children for 6 months.
2. David submitted his resignation citing personal reasons.
3. PM Lee said David served diligently and that he regretted accepting his resignation.
4. DPM Tharman apologised to the voters of Bukit Batok and said that David had to resign because of indiscretion.
5. David admits to extra-marital affair and asks for privacy for himself and his family to heal.
6. Barely hours after David admits extra-marital affair, Zaobao leaks info about Wendy Lim, the woman he allegedly had an affair with.

Now the unknowns:

1. It is very unlikely that Zaobao would have info about the other woman in the MP’s life so soon after the announcement. Usually this kind of CSI work (regardless of how good you are), will take at least 24 – 48 hours to dig out after such news breaks. Did Zaobao already have the scoop on the extra-marital affair, but did not go public because they could not confirm if it was true from the PAP? if so, when did they get the scoop? How did they get the scoop?
2. Will the newspaper extend the same courtesy if it had been a member of the opposition? When news of Yaw Shin Leong’s infidelity broke it was reported that “journalists camped outside his home for days but did not manage to catch him”. Why was not the courtesy of ‘privacy’ extended to an opposition member? The same newspaper, Zaobao, published an unverified poison-pen letter, claiming that WP”s Daniel Goh had an extra-marital affair. Why was the same courtesy of better verifying not extended to the WP member?
3. When did the leadership of PAP get to know about David’s extra-marital affairs? David was at it for 6 months (at least).
4. Why did the PAP not give him the sack?

I agree that we must give both David and Wendy’s families privacy and time to heal. But the media, and especially the PAP must be more open and transparent to Singaporeans on matters such as this. The people will trust and respect you more only when you say it to them as it is, without trying to hide the warts and all.
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Republished from Ravi Philemon’s FB.