Mon, Oct 07, 2002 page3

• Newsmakers: Twu's fight to the finish impresses

  TOUGH GUY From the moment he was falsely accused of sexual impropriety, Twu Shiing-jer came out swinging with a determination that has won him new respect

  • By Chang Yu-jung / STAFF REPORTER
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  Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲), acting head of the Department of Health (DOH), went from accused sexual harasser to vindicated man in less than a week.

  The 52-year-old Twu came under the media spotlight when he was accused last Tuesday of forcibly kissing a man and licking his face, but was cleared of the allegations Friday when his accusers admitted they'd identified the wrong man.

  

  Acting head of the Department of Health Twu Shiing-jer expresses his anger with the media yesterday as his lawyer holds up a newspaper article criticizing the media's handling last week of accusations of sexual harassment against Twu. The accusations were withdrawn Saturday by Twu's accusors.

  PHOTO: LIU HSIN-TEH, TAIPEI TIMES

  But even with his name has been cleared, Twu is still being discussed in many circles because of the aggressive actions and strong will that he displayed.

  From the moment the accusations against him broke, Twu was on the offensive. He called at least five press conferences within three days to defend his innocence.

  In an unprecedented move for a high-ranking government official, Twu also chose to chase down his accusers on the road in order to confront them.

  "He is a very tough and unyielding person who would never hold back in the face of insults or foul play," said Huang Fu-yuan (黃富源), former deputy minister of the DOH.

  Huang worked closely with Twu when Twu was the director general of the DOH's Center for Disease Control.

  Huang said that although he had received complaints about Twu's hardline attitude toward work, "none of [the complaints] ever mentioned anything about sex or sexual harassment."

  "Although Twu is a humorous person who enjoys telling jokes, he is honest and upright," he said.

  Chun Kun-ching (鍾坤井), Twu's close friend and the chairperson of the Foundation of Medical Professionals Alliance in Taiwan (台灣醫界聯盟基金會), also said that Twu is an outspoken and straightforward person who never tries to hide his thoughts.

  "He has always remained true to his ideals and faithful to the [political] party he believes in," Chung said.

  Ever since Twu stepped into politics from medicine in 1995, he has never tried to hide his political views or his close ties to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

  Twu, who graduated from National Taiwan University's School of Medicine and received his doctorate in Public Health from the University of California at Los Angeles, was the key author of Chen's white paper on public health policy when Chen was running for Taipei mayor in 1994 and when he ran for president in 2000.

  At the age of 45, Twu was the youngest person to serve as director of the Taipei City Council's Bureau of Health. When Chen lost his Taipei mayoral re-election bid in 1998, Twu was one of the first city government officials to resign from his post.

  Since the DPP came to power in 2000, Twu has enjoyed a rapid rise up the civil-service ladder as he was promoted to the director general of the CDC in 2000 and then succeeded Huang Fu-yuan (黃富源) as deputy minister of the DOH in July.

  He was then appointed to take over the ministry's leadership in late August following the resignation of former director-general Lee Ming-liang (李明亮).

  Twu's ties to the DPP have made him a constant target of opposition lawmakers' attacks.

  Last month PFP Legislator Yang Fu-mei (楊富美) accused Twu of "promoting himself as a close aide to the president in order to seek higher government office by elbowing out his supervisors."

  After the sex scandal story borke, Yang said a cleaning lady claimed to have witnessed Twu having sexual relations with female colleagues at the CDC office.

  But because Yang failed to provide any evidence to support her accusations, speculation has been rife that the allegation was motivated by jealousy.

  "I know some people couldn't wait to see me resign from my post once the scandal broke," Twu said at a press conference after his accusers -- Cheng Ko-jung (鄭可榮) and PFP Legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) -- publicly apologized for mistakenly identifying Twu as Cheng's sexual harasser.

  Because of that, Twu had confidently pledged to immediately resign from his post if the accusation against him could be proven.

  "Twu is a person who cannot tolerate any form of injustice. He always tries to confront a problem and react to it at the first instant," said Shih Wen-yi (施文儀), secretary general of the Center for Disease Control.

  Although Huang said that Twu's style of dealing with problems has displeased some who have worked for him, in this particular case, Twu's determination and aggressive style won him many points.

  "Twu has shown his supervisors and the public that he can withstand pressure and survive in the face of such a great challenge that threatened both his career and reputation," Huang said.
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