Scandals are always worth delving into. But clearly, not every incident that occurs becomes a scandal. So what makes for a real scandal?
What factors are involved? How does it develop?
With a methodological approach, all these questions can be answered to reveal the logic and effects of a scandal.
Regardless of one's approach, the latest incident, which has been dubbed the "Lo Shih Scandal" and involves the first family's housekeeper, Lo Shih Li-yun (
The people involved are Lo and a man surnamed Chen. They do not hold high positions. They were hired by the National Security Bureau, one as a servant, the other as a security guard.
The money: Lo's compensation over the past three years has been less than NT$1 million, not even NT$300,000 per year.
Neither of these two points merit any further comment. This is nothing like the Chung Hsing Bills scandal, when the main character, People First Party Chairman James Soong (
The money involved reached into the hundreds of millions of NT dollars. Nor is it anything like the question of how KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
The Chung Hsing Bills Finance affair merits the epithet "scandal," and so does the affair surrounding the Lien family fortune.
So why are we even talking about a "Lo Shih Scandal?"
What's more, Chen Ping-lin (陳炳林), a section chief in the National Security Bureau's Rules and Regulations Commission, has said that according to both an interpretation by the Council of Grand Justices and the trust and protection principle, Lo cannot be forced to return the compensation she received, which was less than NT$1 million.
Chen said, "Even if we wanted to, we might not be able to retrieve the money," because there has been no violation of administrative procedure.
In the Chung Hsing Bills scandal, on the other hand, Soong embezzled KMT party funds, and left the party without returning them. Only after being exposed was he forced to return the money.
There are no two ways about it: he took illegal possession of the money.
As for Lien, he has been a public servant all his life.
How could he have amassed such a substantial fortune? To this day, he is unable to give a clear account of the NT$36,280,000 he transferred to Wu Tse-yuan's (
So why has the Lo incident turned into a "scandal?"
The only reason is that it occurred in the home of the first family.
Any mistake committed by the first family, regardless of how insignificant, is played out before the whole nation.
But the attempt by the pan-blue camp and its supporting media to push the minor incident to its limit only shows that they have no substantive issues to work with. Instead, they used this trivial incident to launch a fierce attack. But instead of hurting their intended target, they may well have shot themselves in the foot.
Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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