Government Information Office (GIO) Director-General Arthur Iap (
His mischievous behavior on Saturday during a break in a legislative interpellation session added fuel to fire. Trying to prove that he was under intense media scrutiny, Iap pretended to shoot photographers who took pictures of every move he made. The gesture was later harshly criticized by opposition lawmakers.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
Although Premier Yu Shyi-kun said that he understood why Iap, whom he painted as an upbeat person, played such a harmless joke on the media, Iap was reportedly asked to keep out of the media spotlight for the time being.
For example, although he original planned to attend a closed-door meeting with the premier and 20 other Cabinet officials at Yu's official residence on Saturday, Iap decided not to go.
Apparently incensed by myriad controversies caused by Iap recently, opposition lawmakers have asked him to step down and called on the government to abolish the GIO.
Iap has been hunted by the media since the beginning of March when the GIO announced that it will integrate various government agencies' resources to buy air time and advertisement space in the media to promote government initiatives.
The fund would cover a NT$200 million promotion, which is scheduled to run between April 1 and June 30, and NT$900 million more, if necessary, running from July to March next year.
Claiming that the government can get a better deal through this kind of bidding process, Iap said that his office did not violate any laws by integrating various government agencies' needs to promote government initiatives with the budgets approved by the legislature.
The move, however, was criticized by opposition parties for wasting taxpayers' money to promote President Chen Shui-bian (
Iap further infuriated opposition parties in mid-March when the media revealed that the GIO spent more than NT$30 million last year to buy air time to promote government initiatives on television.
In mid-April, Iap was the target of ferocious criticism from the media when he likened the circulation and financial resources of the print media to human genitals.
Claiming that the print media, as a public organ, should make public such information as circulation, readership and financial resources, which have long been deemed by the media as confidential, Iap said that his description was not at all inappropriate.
Iap was referring to a planned GIO project to study the basic structural elements of the print media. Study items would include the circulation volume, circulation area, manpower and financial resources of the nation's newspapers and magazines and the impact of the nation's accession to the WTO on the print media.
Bowing to media pressure, however, the tender for this NT$3 million project was eventually called off at the behest of the premier.
The GIO was also forced to circumvent the controversial aspects of a separate campaign, which would review the news coverage of the mainstream Chinese-language newspapers.
The GIO had awarded NT$950,000 to the Foundation for the Prevention of Public Damage by the Media (
The foundation would look into the six dailies' news coverage from page one to page four from the perspectives of justice, objectivity, appropriateness and accuracy. Results of the evaluation would be released every two months.
Although the GIO claimed that the practice has been going on since the KMT was in power, the media have berated the government for violating their freedom of speech.
Describing his direct supervisor as smart, diligent and simpatico, Su Ruey-ren (
"I guess it has a lot to do with his unique background," he said.
A man who once sold toothpaste and underwear for a living, Iap was virtually unknown to the public before he came to the high-profile office in February last year.
In addition to being a salesman, the 51-year-old native of Kaohsiung's unusual career before choosing government service also included translating the bible from English to romanized Taiwanese.
While studying international law and relations in the US, Iap passed the civil servant's examination. He joined the Board of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Economic Affairs after returning to Taiwan.
A few months into civil service, Iap found a new job at the Institute for National Policy Research, a private think tank, as the deputy executive director when the center was established in 1989.
The research center is headed by TSU Chairman Huang Chu-wen (
Before becoming an advisor at the National Security Council in May 2000, Iap was a research fellow at the Taiwan Research Institute, where former president Lee Teng-hui (
His academic background is diverse as well. After graduating with a law degree from National Chung Hsing University, Iap studied economics and politics at Waseda University in Japan.
Iap later pursued master's degrees in international law and international relations in Japan.
In addition to his native Hokkien and Mandarin, Iap is fluent in English, Japanese, Spanish, Russian and German.
In the eyes of Lien Cheng-shih (
"We all like him because he's such an amiable person," Lien said. "Since he doesn't talk much and keeps a low profile, it's hard to tell from the outside that he's such an accomplished scholar."
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