The legislature’s Internal Administration Committee yesterday voted to put Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (MTAC) Minister Lo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪) on the committee’s “unwelcome” list and urged the Executive Yuan to suspend her administrative duties in Aboriginal and Hakka affairs.
The committee made the decisions after Lo, who doubles as a minister without portfolio, engaged in verbal disputes with several members of the committee because she insisted she was attending the committee meeting as MTAC minister and refused to answer any question that was unrelated to Mongolian and Tibetan issues.
The dispute began on May 8, when Non-Partisan Solidarity Union Legislator May Chin (高金素梅), an Atayal Aborigine, asked Lo questions about Aboriginal autonomy.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
In her capacity as a minister without portfolio, Lo is in charge of ethnic affairs, including participating in the drafting of the Aboriginal autonomy bill.
At the time, Lo refused to take the question, saying she was attending the meeting as MTAC minister and exchanged angry words with Chin.
The fight continued yesterday.
“You just answered a question about the birth rate in Taiwan, which is not an issue under the MTAC, but rather the Ministry of the Interior’s business,” Chin said as soon as she took the podium, referring to a question that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chi Kuo-tung (紀國棟) had asked earlier.
“I was very upset and dissatisfied with your attitude last time.Someone from a dominant ethnic group should never call someone from a disadvantaged group a ‘chauvinist’; this is not something that someone with a good education should do,” Chin said.
Lo replied there were also birth rate issues among Mongolians and Tibetans living in Taiwan, making the question the ministry’s responsibility.
“But Chi was asking about birth rate issues for the general public, not for Mongolians or Tibetans living in Taiwan,” Chin said.
“Well, when Mongolians and Tibetans live in Taiwan, they are also members of the general public,” Lo said.
Chin followed up with questions related to Aboriginal issues, to which Lo said she did not have the answers or would not answer because the issues were not the ministry’s business.
“If you don’t know, you should say you don’t know,” Chin said. “It’s ridiculous that Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) would appoint someone who is so unfamiliar with Aboriginal affairs to be in charge of Aboriginal issues.”
Chin then asked committee staffers to read out loud Article 25 of the Act on Exercise of Legislative Power (立法院職權行使法), which stipulates that an official questioned by a lawmaker in a legislative meeting “shall not refuse to answer unless when it may pose an instant threat to diplomacy or national defense, or when it involves information that shall be confidential according to the law.”
“I still cannot answer it, I’m here as MTAC minister, the question [on Aboriginal autonomy] is unrelated to the MTAC’s business,” Lo said.
The answer triggered anger from other lawmakers.
“You are the MTAC minister, but you are also a minister without portfolio [in charge of Aboriginal issues],” shouted KMT Legislator Jeng Tian-tsair (鄭天財), an Amis Aborigine. “If you don’t want to take the question, you should quit this job.”
“You don’t know anything about Aborigines,” shouted KMT Legislator Chien Tung-ming (簡東明), a Paiwan Aborigine.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), who presided at the meeting, sided with his colleagues and condemned Lo for refusing to take Chin’s questions on Aboriginal issues.
The committee later adopted resolutions to place Lo on the committee’s unwelcome list and recommended the Executive Yuan appoint another person take charge of ethnic affairs.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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