Daily Lesson from Life 06 August 2008

"Taiwan declassifies documents of ex-president's probe

The documents allegedly implicate ex-president Chen Shui-bian in an embezzlement case. -Wed, Aug 06, 2008 AFP

TAIPEI - TAIWAN'S President Ma Ying-jeou on Wednesday declassified documents allegedly implicating his predecessor Chen Shui-bian in a high-profile embezzlement case.

The move will help prosecutors investigating if the former president was involved in a 14.8-million Taiwan dollars (S$606,164) special expenses case.

'We've scrutinised the related evidence. There will be no problem such as endangering the country's interest in making public these documents,' Mr Chan Chun poh, Mr Ma's chief aide, said at a press conference.

Prosecutors named Chen, of the Democratic Progressive Party, as a suspect in the case in 2006. His wife, Wu Shu-chen, is on trial for corruption and document forgery in connection with the same case, but Chen had escaped prosecution due to his presidential immunity.

Chen has admitted using false receipts to claim money from the state, but he insists those funds were used for 'secret diplomatic missions,' and not his personal benefit.

Nevertheless, prosecutors found that at least 1.5 million Taiwan dollars had been spent on diamond rings and other luxury items for his wife.

The former president had classified the related documents before prosecutors launched an official investigation on May 20, the day he retired at the end of his second and final four-year term."


It is an interesting twist of fate. With democracy comes change of government and the people in power if the electorate is unhappy with the ruling class! This will not be possible in a dictatorial society. Of course, the voters have to vote wisely and NOT be bought by pork barrel politics like in some countries that we know of.

Lessons for me are:

1. when you are in a leadership position, you have to keep a straight bearing and remembered why you want to be a leader. Is it for personal fame and glory or for the betterment of fellow human being? Your vision must be cleared, specific, and grounded on solid ethical reasoning!;

2. you can fool someone sometime but you cannot fool everyone all the time. You may abuse your power to conceal and shut people up from telling the truth but you cannot suppress truth for infinitely! As good leader, if you listen carefully with your head and your heart, you will know there are things that you do that you will not be proud to tell your children and grandchildren. The young and innocent will tell you so!;

3. some may say all this 'witch hunting' is just political cleansing. Getting rid of political rivals as the new power becomes the government of the days. While this may be true, and the that cleansing is not based on the most noble of motive, there can be no excuses for them if we had done nothing that we cannot tell our children and grandchildren! The seeds are sowed by us. If we planted good seeds, the rivals cannot dig out dirt!

May the truth be unveiled and that justice be served without fear or favour! As leaders, we must be able to stand up to such scrutiny!

4. special mention: President Chen was swept into power intially due to his pledge to change the 'corrupt way of the KMT government'. It was indeed sad, very sad, to see one with an originally good vision going astray! One lesson we must bear in mind as leader! We have to guard against such straying!!