Some lawmakers contradicted themselves by deciding not to have an extraordinary legislative session, Cabinet Spokesman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday.
Cho, speaking on behalf of Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), made the comment after he learned that the legislature had decided not to hold an extraordinary session this summer to review several proposals, including the Cabinet's NT$80 billion anti-flood program budget.
Cho said that some lawmakers were still petitioning on behalf of people in Taoyuan County who have been suffering from lack of water supplies, but around noon, these lawmakers decided not to back a special session. The NT$80 billion budget will be on hold until the legislature's regular sessions opens next month.
"This is such a contradiction. If you care, you will try to help. But if you do not meet, how can you help?" he said.
According to Cho, the Cabinet was shocked to learn of the decision not to convene a special session because Cabinet officials had worked hard to convince legislators of the need for both the flood-control project and the special session.
"Conversations with lawmakers were harmonious and friendly. We did not expect a decision like this," Cho said. "We are very sorry this happened."
He said that he understood that some opposition lawmakers had to reject the special session for political reasons. However, he said, they sacrificed their voters by doing so.
He said he worried that the legislature would now use the pending bills as political pawns in a tug of war between parties.
"It will definitely jeopardize people's lives and property. The entire government will pay a huge price for this as well," he said.
"Everything can wait except for the water problem," Cho said. "Who knows what will happen? If another tragedy happens, who will take the responsibility then?"
Hsieh met with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) several times to seek support for a special session so that key proposals could be reviewed and passed as soon as possible.
Although the Cabinet is upset by the legislature's decision, its members will not stop pushing the government's proposals, Chou said.
"It is still our hope that the flood-budget proposal can be reviewed and authorized as the first thing when the next session begins," he said.
Presidential Office Secretary-General Yu Shyi-kun expressed his regrets over the decision.
He said that important bills, such as special arms budget and water resources management, affect people's daily lives and therefore it was worth spending money on such crucial issues.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Secretary-General Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) condemned the pan-blue camp's veto of a special legislative session, blaming the pan-blue camp for ignoring people's suffering and hindering national development.
Lee also said the latest DPP poll, conducted last Saturday, found that about 66.2 percent of respondents backed the idea of a special session to review the flood-control proposal. Of those respondents who identified themselves as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supporters, 58.8 percent supported a special session and roughly the same percentage of people who said they were People First Party supporters did so as well, he said.
"In other words, holding a provisional legislative session to solve the flood disaster is the common wish of all the people. The pan-blue camp not only violated the people's expectations but also fell short of its own supporters' expectations," Lee said.
Additional reporting by staff reporter Chiu Yu-tzu
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater