IT could not have been easy for Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek to publicly admit he was the person in the video disc showing him and a long-time female friend having sex.

From a state-level politician for many years, his career rocketed when he was made a minister and subsequently became vice-president of the second largest political party in the country, the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA).

He was making political waves and the indications were that he would eventually go for the deputy presidency of the MCA and eventually have a shot at becoming party president.

And when he least expected it, his indiscretions caught up with him and have all but put paid to his career.

But, perhaps, that will be the least of Chua's worries.
The greater burden he has to face, as a man, as a human being, as a father and as a husband, is the burden of guilt he bears for the pain he has brought upon his wife and children.

Chua could have played the denial game, like many prominent people and politicians throughout the world, including in our own country, played each time they are caught in embarrassing positions.

The tape was doctored; it was not me; it's a political ploy.

But no. Two days after the story of the tape hit the news, Chua came out, admitted his role, and left his fate to party elders, a fate that he knows is practically sealed.

Sadly, in an ironic way, Chua has displayed a sense of accountability that not many — in fact, very few — politicians, on either side of the spectrum, have ever displayed or shown in Malaysian politics.

Perhaps, painful as it may be to him, Chua should relinquish his government position to save himself and the government from further anguish.

By coming out in the open, Chua has saved his party leaders and cabinet peers the unenviable task of defending a colleague and friend whose position is difficult to defend.

By admitting his guilt to an act that cannot be seen as anything less than immoral, Chua has also taken the burden of guilt upon himself, as he rightly should, and spared his party and the government from second guessing whether it was indeed him on the tape or not.

But by confessing his sins, he has also paid a heavy price and deeply scarred his relations with his own family, who, by their own account, say that bar the indiscretions they were kept unaware of, Chua has been a good father and a good husband.

His wife, in her own statement through the national news agency Bernama, admits that things are not going to be easy going forward. Yet, she and her children know Chua as the father and husband he has been and will forgive him and try to move forward, tough as it may be.

Unfortunately for Chua, trust will not be easy to regain and he will have to live with his guilt for a long time, if not for the rest of his life.

What Chua did was wrong. And like it or not, we hold politicians to higher standards and we are less forgiving of their indiscretions and mistakes.

Chua is paying a very high price for his weakness and he has asked for forgiveness and appealed that we give him and his family space.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves one question when judging Chua — who are we not to forgive him who has asked for forgiveness for have we, too, the fallible human beings that we are, not sinned at one time or another?

There may be a lesson for all of us to learn from what befell Chua and his family.