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Overseas Chinese official denounces TVBS brothel report

The Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission yesterday angrily denied a report in TVBS Weekly magazine that it had subsidized visits by overseas Taiwanese to brothels on and around Double Ten National Day.

Chairwoman Chang Fu-mei (張富美) dismissed the report as "disgusting" and "intolerable" at a press conference yesterday.

An issue of the magazine published yesterday carried a report accusing the commission of paying for the visits by overseas Taiwanese.

"Government subsidies for returning overseas Taiwanese are beyond belief. Some of these overseas Taiwanese took the government's money and headed for the brothels," the report said.

"To our taxpayers, the behavior of these overseas Taiwanese is truly distasteful," it added.

The magazine also carried two photos showing Chua Bun-khiok (蔡文曲), a leader of the Taiwanese community in Manila, visiting a restaurant shortly after registering with the commission on Oct. 8.

The photo captions did not say that the restaurant Chua visited offered sex services, but were placed next to two other pictures showing unidentified "overseas Taiwanese" talking to prostitutes on two streets in Taipei.

Leaders of returning overseas Taiwanese loved to visit brothels after dinner, the report said.

Chua, who spoke at the press conference, said the report had hurt him deeply.

A former legislator, Chua has attended National Day celebrations for more than three decades.

"We overseas Taiwanese come home every year to attend the National Day celebrations because of our love for our country. The commission never paid for our trips. We paid for our own trips," he said.

Chua said he chose the restaurant in the photograph because it was situated on the same street as his hotel.

He said the report had caused him enormous embarrassment, and that he would now have to explain his innocence to his friends and the Taiwanese community in Manila.

Chang, who called the report "an insult" to the commission, said she wanted to file a lawsuit against the magazine.

"We started preparations for overseas Taiwanese coming home for the National Day in July. We convened 19 meetings. More than 300 staff were involved in the preparations," Chang said.

"Who would like to come home again after the accusations in this report?" she asked. "The report is purely and simply immoral."

But Chang said it might be difficult to sue the magazine because the language the report used was elusive.

The commission had not subsidized the airfares and hotel expenses of overseas Taiwanese, although it had offered several travel packages to select from during their stay, Chang said.

The commission authorized 17 travel agencies to arrange the trips, she said.

"We paid each overseas Tai-wanese NT$3,000 for the package he or she chose. But the money was paid to the travel agencies rather than to the overseas Taiwanese themselves," she said.

TVBS Weekly had not res-ponded to Chang's remarks at press time yesterday.
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