After nine rounds of cross-party negotiations, the pan-blue dominated legislature yesterday passed the long-anticipated organic bill of the national communications commission (NCC), paving the way for the abolition of the Government Information Office (GIO).
The law states that the NCC will be established under the Executive Yuan as an independent entity. It will be the sole supervisory body of the nation's telecommunications and media industries.
Currently, the media industry is regulated by the GIO, while the telecommunications industry falls under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
Upset by the outcome, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said it would not rule out requesting a constitutional interpretation from the Council of Grand Justices.
"We feel deep regret over the passage of the law because the NCC should be an independent entity, free from political interference," said DPP Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), who also serves as the director of the party's Policy Committee, after the bill cleared the legislature late yesterday afternoon.
Ker said the caucus will consult legal experts and the Presidential Office on the possibility of filing for a constitutional interpretation.
He urged the public to closely supervise the future operations of the NCC review committee.
The pan-blue controlled legislature voted 112 to 98, with no abstentions, in favor of the contentious article four of the NCC bill proposed by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) caucuses.
The bill specifies that the political parties nominate 15 candidates for the NCC committee, with each party's number of selections in proportion to the number of seats they have in the legislature.
The premier nominates three more candidates, for a total of 18 candidates.
An 11-member review committee will then elect 13 NCC members from the pool, with three-fifths of the review committee's consent required. The review committee will be made up of academics and experts recommended by political parties in proportion to each party's number of seats in the legislature.
To fill any vacancies that remain if fewer than 13 NCC members are chosen in the first round of the ballot, the consent of one-half of the review committee is needed.
The premier will then nominate the 13 recommended NCC members seven days after the review committee's selections, pending the ratification of the legislature.
The DPP caucus, however, said that this was tantamount to letting political power extend into the independent committee.
The plenary legislative sitting began at 9am but Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
The two-hour meeting ended fruitlessly though, as the two camps refused to budge over the approval threshold of the review committee.
A DPP caucus meeting called at noon endorsed the pan-blue's proposal, but the caucus said it would like to see at least half, or seven, of the NCC members obtain three-fifths of the review committee's consent before the second round of voting was allowed.
Another cross-party meeting began at 2:30pm but went nowhere. The DPP shifted its position during the talks and proposed a one-phase approval threshold of three fifths.
Wang then ruled that the matter be settled by a vote, while the less controversial articles of the bill proceeded to further readings.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS