The Presidential Office vowed yesterday to push “sunshine bills” in the upcoming legislative session, but stopped short of promising to pass them during that period.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had always been against corruption, as highlighted by his anti-corruption platform during the presidential election and the code of ethics for civil servants he proposed after taking office.
“The administration has made ‘sunshine laws’ priority bills for the legislative session,” Wang said. “President Ma’s efforts show that he not only opposes corruption in principle, but also in deed.”
Asked by the Taipei Times whether the Presidential Office was determined to push the “sunshine bills” during the legislative session, Wang said the position of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus — which holds a majority in the legislature — was in line with that of the Presidential Office.
“We believe caucus members will do their best,” he said. “We are very determined and will make efforts to pass those bills as soon as possible.”
Wang made the remarks in response to requests by former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德) yesterday.
Shih was the leader of the campaign in 2006 seeking to depose then president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) at the height of a corruption scandal surrounding Chen’s family and close aides.
While Ma declined to receive Shih yesterday, Presidential Office Secretary-General Chan Chun-po (詹春柏) did so. Wang said it would have been inappropriate for Ma to meet Shih because the president did not want to give the impression that he was meddling in the Chen case.
“As it is a legal case rather than a political one, the president wants to see the judiciary handle the case independently,” Wang said.
“If the justice minister or chief of the investigation bureau should not be involved in the case, then there is no reason whatsoever for the president to do so either,” he said.
Although Ma has made it clear he does not tolerate crime and corruption, Wang said, all legal cases must follow due process and Ma would be happy to meet Shih after the Chen case is closed.
Shih also requested that Ma supervise the investigation into Chen’s alleged money laundering.
On his way to the Presidential Office, Shih told reporters he was convinced Chen and his family were corrupt, but that many people were unaware of it. Shih urged Ma “to exercise his resolve, fortitude and wisdom to crack down on corruption, at a time when the public has lost faith in the judiciary.”
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
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
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