Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) yesterday said that he would give up his pension and privileges, and return to his position as a research fellow at Academia Sinica.
He will be the first vice president to renounce their pension and privileges.
The Act of Courtesy for Former Presidents and Vice Presidents (卸任總統副總統禮遇條例) stipulates a monthly pension of NT$180,000 (US$6,010) for a former vice president, along with a NT$4 million annual budget to pay for their security detail, chauffeur and operational costs of their office.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
However, the budget is reduced by NT$500,000 each year over a four-year period to NT$2.5 million, where it would remain.
Eschewing the pension and payments would save the nation about NT$23 million in the first four years after he leaves office.
However, as his position has made him privy to state secrets, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has ordered security to protect Chen under the Special Service Act (特種勤務條例), a source said.
“True power comes from service,” Chen wrote yesterday on Facebook, quoting Pope Francis.
Chen said that it has been his honor to serve Taiwan for four years, during which he took part in advocating for marriage equality, improving human rights and containing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chen, who led the fight against SARS from 2003 to 2004 as head of the then-Department of Health, said he is glad to see his team reuniting again to fight against COVID-19 and that Taiwanese are practicing better personal hygiene.
Quoting Mother Teresa, Chen, a devout Catholic, compared himself to a “little pencil in God’s hands,” which when broken is sharpened a little more.
It is time for the pencil to continue writing research papers and books, he said.
Asked about his advice for vice president-elect William Lai (賴清德), Chen said during a meeting with journalists at the Presidential Office in Taipei that no policy can win everyone’s support and that any politician would face both praise and criticism.
Lai is more experienced in politics and more capable than he is, Chen said, adding that he is convinced that Lai would help Tsai make Taiwan better in the next four years.
Later yesterday, Tsai on Facebook thanked Chen for his help in promoting pension reform, marriage equality, diplomatic affairs and disease prevention.
Everyone who has worked with Chen likes him for his warmth and optimism, Tsai wrote.
Academia Sinica confirmed that Chen would return to his research post at its Genomics Research Center.
The institution has prepared him an office, it said, adding that it would rely on Chen’s expertise in epidemiology and public health, to boost its related research capacity.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
Taiwan has recorded its first fatal case of Coxsackie B5 enterovirus in 10 years after a one-year-old boy from southern Taiwan died from complications early last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. CDC spokesman Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) told a news conference that the child initially developed a fever and respiratory symptoms before experiencing seizures and loss of consciousness. The boy was diagnosed with acute encephalitis and admitted to intensive care, but his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he passed away on the sixth day of illness, Lo said. This also marks Taiwan’s third enterovirus-related death this year and the first severe
A Taiwanese software developer has created a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model to help people use AI without exposing sensitive data, project head Huang Chung-hsiao (黃崇校) said yesterday. Huang, a 55-year-old coder leading a US-based team, said that concerns over data privacy and security in popular generative AIs such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek motivated him to develop a personal AI assistant named “Mei.” One of the biggest security flaws with cloud-based algorithms is that users are required to hand over personal information to access the service, giving developers the opportunity to mine user data, he said. For this reason, many government agencies and
RSS