GIO Budget Slashed

The recent flap over TVBS gave pan-Blue legislators the perfect excuse to attack the GIO.

Opposition legislators yesterday slashed the Government Information Office's budget by over 30 percent amid a fierce verbal battle between them and GIO chief Pasuya Yao (姚文智) that led him to walk out of a hearing held to review the agency's funding.

One of the Blues' most important goals is to bring governance on the island to a halt and here they were handed an excellent opportunity. Yao looked like even more of an idiot on the TVBS affair as a pan-Green station is, like TVBS, in violation of the laws.

KMT lawmaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said that Min Gin Investment Co., Ltd. holds over 50 percent of FTV's shares, which violates a broadcasting law which

forbids any one corporation from holding over 50 percent of the shares in any TV station.

Yao acknowledged that Min Gin Investment Co., Ltd. is a majority owner of Formosa Television, but argued that its ownership structure had remain unchanged since its first operating license was issued during Jason Hu's (胡志強) tenure as the head of the GIO. Because of that, Yao said, the station's ownership structure did not need to be revised.

In contrast, TVBS had a change in shareholders earlier this year.

But People First Party lawmaker Lee Ching-an contended that in fact Formosa Television applied to change its shareholder registration in September and therefore should be treated just like TVBS.

Here's another example of the error the government made when it continued the authoritarian practice of regarding laws as leverage directed against enemies rather than norms applied to all. Yao should have moved against everyone when he came into office. Instead, Yao has made his party look awful and damaged the nation's political development. The results, I expect, will become clear during the upcoming elections.

Lost in that long article is this tidbit:

She was angered that the GIO had allocated only NT$88 million for the National Communications Commission. Recently authorized by a new law, the commission is supposed to be an independent body that will take over the GIO's media supervisory functions. Lei argued that the NT$88 million in funding paled noticeably in comparison with the GIO's NT$4 billion-a-year budget, an indication that the GIO was trying to stop the NCC from being created.

The Blues have been moving, in fits and starts, to strip the DPP-controlled government of its powers and transfer them to entities controlled by the legislature (this should be a signal of how confident they are of retaining local-level superiority). This shot at Yao masks two larger trends -- the Blue move to prevent governance of Taiwan, which after all not only reflects positively on the DPP but also tends to reinforce Taiwan's independence, and the growing willingness of the legislature to take over governance because the government is DPP. The Blue victory in the legislative elections was a disaster for Taiwan, and for hopes of a democratic future for the island.

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