Just yesterday morning, Chen was shouted at twice when attending public activities. A university student shouted that the government should designate Losheng Sanitarium at Hsingchuang City, Taipei County as a historical medical site when Chen was entering the Taipei International Convention Center to speak at the 100th Taiwan Medicine Congress at 9:00 a.m. yesterday.

The student attended the gathering disguised as a doctor. He kept shouting loudly, asking Chen to keep the controversial sanitarium as a medical heritage instead of dismantling it to make way for the construction of a mass rapid transit system station in Hsingchuang City.

The student was forcibly removed from the convention center, but Chen seemed indifferent to such a scene.

Half an hour later, Chen showed up to attend the 100th founding anniversary of the Chung Cheng Elementary School. When he was invited to deliver a speech at the ceremony, a student parent in a green jacket, surnamed Chang, shouted at Chen to "step down."

Chang was soon taken away to the playground, where he told reporters that he didn't plan to show up at the occasion to shout to Chen, but immediately felt angry when he saw Chen appear at the ceremony.

Chang said that Chen has irritated local people through his reckless and arrogant responses to people's recent complaints.

Just two days ago, a middle-aged man shouted to Chen that "People can hardly make a living!" when Chen made a tour of an international medical equipment exhibition. But when returning to the Presidential Office, Chen ironically responded to the man's complaints, saying "How can a man who can hardly make a living still have the time to attend the show and have the money to buy the entry ticket?"

In addition, when Vice President Annette Lu visited a traditional market in Kaohsiung City, a female pork vendor complained to her about poor sales of her pork products due mainly to sales prices rising significantly to reflect increased hog production costs, calling for the government to do something about it.

But on the following day, Lu told the press that the pork vendor incident had been orchestrated in order to embarrass Lu.

The arrogant responses of Chen and Lu to calls of local people gave the impression that the ruling DPP can hardly reflect themselves and just turned a deaf ear to the real voices of grassroots people.

President Chen even told reporters that it might be the "RedShirts" protesters that masterminded a spate of shouting against him. The "RedShirts" refer to those who joined a campaign organized by former chairman Shih Ming-teh of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party to oust Chen over a spate of corruption cases Chen's family members and close aides had committed.

Also yesterday, presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou of the opposition Kuomintang said that both President Chen and Vice President Lu are unwilling to facing the reality of the growing living misery of local people, and instead, they tended to regard complaints from local people as orchestrated or falsified. "Such a mentality is quite terrible."

Ma made the remarks when asked by reporters to comment on Chen and Lu's responses to complaints from local people. He said as a leader of the country, Chen should listen more to the voices of the local people.

Meanwhile, Lawmaker Ku Su-tsun, the whip of the legislative caucus of the Kuomintang, said she can't imagine that a national leader has enjoyed becoming an enemy to people.