To snitch or not to snitch

ONE and a half decades ago, Ilocos Sur Governor Chavit Singson barely escaped assassination in Manila when gunmen sent by a rival jueteng lord surrounded his bulletproof vehicle. They left him unharmed only after other local government leaders with armed bodyguards arrived to secure him.

That brush with death convinced Chavit that his erstwhile patron, then President Joseph Estrada, would no longer protect him. So he decided to snitch on jueteng payoffs shared with Erap, even declaring they should both go to prison. As it happened, Estrada was ousted and jailed, while Singson went scot-free.