About 70 percent of people think the special arms procurement bill should be swiftly passed to the legislature's National Defense Committee for review, according to a survey released yesterday by the Ministry of National Defense.
"The ministry asked ERA TV's poll center to conduct a poll on the special arms budget bill. The survey was conducted from Nov. 1 to Nov. 3," ministry spokesman Rear Admiral Liou Chih-chien (
"Of the 1,068 respondents, 47.6 percent supported approving the arms bill while 37.8 percent opposed the proposal," Liou said.
Most significant, Liou said, was that "69.6 percent of respondents think the bill should not be blocked any longer in the legislature's Procedure Committee, but should be reviewed by the National Defense Committee."
He said the poll indicted that many people feel national security is important and the result of the poll would boost the ministry's confidence that the arms bill will finally win approval.
Only a rational review of the bill by the legislature's National Defense Committee, not the emotional partisanship shown in the Procedure Committee, can make the nation better understand the arms proposal, Liou said.
However, People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (
He said the credibility of the survey was in question since the defense ministry had commissioned the poll.
Lin said the pan-blue camp would only review its stance on the bill after the Dec. 3 local government elections.
PFP Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (
Chang said that the referendum held last year alongside the presidential election was a public veto of the purchase of Patriot missiles and so that vote represented public opinion on the arms bill.
Chang said only 45.17 percent of eligible voters took part in the referendum, but the law requires at least 50 percent of those eligible to cast votes to make a referendum valid.
The arms procurement bill was designed to purchase three major weapons systems from the US -- eight diesel-electric submarines, 12 P-3C Orion maritime-patrol aircraft and three PAC-3 Patriot anti-missile batteries.
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