Post implying Tainan mayor was informant has Philippines IP address: police

Tainan, Jan. 19 (CNA) A social media post that implied that Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) was an informant for the Kuomintang (KMT) authoritarian regime when he was a college student was sent from an IP address in the Philippines, Tainan police said Wednesday.

The post, which was put up on popular Taiwanese message board forum PTT on November 15, 2021, insinuated that Huang, who is from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), had worked as an informant for the KMT when he was a National Taiwan University student.

In response, Huang denied the claim and called it senseless speculation, telling the media last November, "I am not A143 (a code number for an unidentified informant)."

He also reported the case to city police, which subsequently sent a document to the Criminal Investigation Bureau's international criminal affairs division to request help to investigate the matter, according to the police.

On Wednesday, Tainan police said they had determined that the PTT article had been sent from an IP address in the Philippines, adding that they were still looking for the person who had posted the article.

Huang, 58, again denied the claim on Wednesday in a Facebook post, saying that he had not worked as an informant or collaborated with special agents during the authoritarian era, which lasted from 1949 to 1987.

He also said he would take legal action against anyone with bad intentions who had made those false accusations.

"In a democratic Taiwan, it is ridiculous that people still use false special agent reports for political power struggles and allow the specter of the authoritarian regime to continue haunting the country," Huang said in the post.

"My stance is clear: Make all folders and files during the authoritarian era public for review" to find those who should be held accountable during the era, according to Huang in his Facebook post.