“I could hardly breathe. People forget that I was the victim”

PICTURE: CHU MEI-FENG

Who are they? What do they look like? Got picture?

Such is the buzz online and in coffee shops ever since three women were named in the sex-for-contracts case involving former Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) commissioner Peter Lim Sin Pang on Wednesday.

The three women, two of whom are married, have been avoiding the media glare, even as netizens and forum runners trawl the Internet for pictures and more news on their lives.

What must it be like for the three women?

One woman knows. She knows what it feels like to be in the centre of a sex scandal, and what it is like being THAT woman.

Ms Chu Mei-feng is the former Taipei city councillor who fell from grace in December 2001 after she was secretly filmed having sex with her married lover, Mr Tseng Chung-ming.

In a telephone interview from Taipei, Ms Chu, now 45, says she knows what it’s like to be forced to go into hiding.

She recalls what it was like to be hounded by the media. “Everywhere you go, there’d be at least four or five cameras following you,” she says. “I could hardly breathe. People forget that I was the victim..”

Ms Chu has this advice for the three women: “It’s going to take a whole load of courage to face the people.