Philippine Media: Philippines Should Apologize to Taiwan

Philippine Media: Philippines Should Apologize to Taiwan

Source: United Daily News

February 16, 2011

As our government has strongly protested the Philippine government’s inappropriate decision to repatriate fraud suspects of ROC nationality to the Mainland, the Philippine media recently responded. The four main media outlets, namely, the Manila Times, the Manila Bulletin, the Daily Tribune and Business Mirror, have asked the Philippine government to apologize for its inappropriate decision in order to maintain the bilateral relationship. 

Johnny Chiang, ROC Government Information Office Director, stated that the Manila Times in an editorial on February 11 and 12, called on the President of the Philippines not to underestimate the gravity of the incident and carefully consider apologizing to Taiwan.    

The editorial on Feb. 12 also pointed out that the incident demonstrated that the Philippine government did not understand the sensitivity of cross-Strait affairs, adding that the officials in the Malacanang Palace (Philippine Presidential Office) could have handled the situation better if they had carefully listened to the opinions from Taiwan in advance.

The Manila Times went on to say, “Taiwan has a point that at issue here is not the One China Policy. The issue is whether Philippine laws and procedures were broken by Filipino authorities. And a related issue is the authority of a writ of habeas corpus issued by Court of Appeals, as well as the authority of prosecutors who have yet to complete their procedures in this case. It is unfortunate that because foreigners were involved, the Filipino people, particularly the innocent and hardworking OFWs(overseas Filipino workers) in Taiwan, are the ones that end up suffering the consequences.

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