So what’s new? At one moment, nobody in the party wanted to comment on the rumours surrounding Hougang MP Mr Yaw Shin Leong. His party was behind him and standing firm against a biased mainstream media. The next moment, we’re told that he has been expelled.
Ya mo gao chor ah? I’m not easily surprised, but that’s really quite startling. Toothfully, I’m not sure if it’s worse for Mr Yaw to continue serving the residents with accusations of infidelity hanging over his head or to just flee the scene without addressing the issue at all. This letter to Today has raised an interesting point. We had expected the Workers Party to hold its ground and fight the mainstream media. They have lots of supporters. Why suddenly raise the white flag? I’m not sure how many Hougang residents would stand ready to forgive Mr Yaw if he had confessed to marital infidelity, but it didn’t seem right to me that he and his party didn’t even give it a try. Perhaps his party had already done a poll and found that a good majority in Hougang are pissed off with him. Isn’t it sad?
Of course, the bulk of the credit for destroying Mr Yaw’s political career should go to our media. Heavily criticised for being biased, the public still loved a good one-sided story with careful attention to juicy details. Stories on the other side of the fence are only covered in unofficial alternative media.
When a netizen by the name of “scroobal” posted similar accusations on a member of the other party, owner of Yawning Bread Alex Au promptly received a letter from lawyers, asking him to remove the offending comment and publish the letter he received in full on his website.
A lawsuit on the way? Probably not. Yawning Bread is hosted in the US. It would require the help of the FBI to trace “scroobal”. The folks at Sammyboy said that the plan had backfired. The names of the parties involved in the alleged defamation became the most popular search terms on google.sg when Alex Au posted the lawyer’s letter. Well, so what? I don’t think anyone will find any information on the internet. The plan is really to warn bloggers and social media users not to gossip about the wrong people. I think it worked. One side appears clean as a whistle. The other side appears filthy, messy, disunited.
Now let’s move to the other side and take a look at people whom we can safely talk about. That would be the unfortunate folks on the online pimp’s client list. Members of the public who have been interviewed gave mixed reactions. Some were OK with lawyers and high ranking civil servants buying sex online. But they were not as understanding in the case of the principal, who reportedly resigned from his post at a top school.
One concerned mother added that if she had a daughter, she would be very concerned on how the ex-principal looked at girls in his school. Yao mo gao chor ah, auntie? You mean your daughter goes to school dressed like the girls on that online brothel meh? Ironically, you think the principal will allow it meh? You should be even more worried if your daughter is a teacher. If you could read the minds of the 16-year-old schoolboys, you may think that your daughter would be best off in a convent or nunnery.
