One prominent television spot aired around the country, sponsored by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, depicts various DPP candidates rolling up their sleeves as they scrub, clean and paint an unseen white structure.

After one of the candidates climbs up a ladder and pulls out a weed from the top of the unseen structure, DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen steps up and tips her glasses in a subtle sign of her approval.

As the group steps back, a giant structure is seen bearing the slogan “Green Governance. Quality Guaranteed.”

The DPP candidates and Tsai then warmly hug each other and celebrate as they admire the shining clean edifice.

As far as Taiwan political ads go, the commercial is not particularly unusual or remarkable.

But on Friday, the Taipei District Court handed down a verdict that should remind the public about what kind of “quality” they should really expect from the DPP.

After all, the DPP has yet to even hint of distancing itself from the disgraced and corrupt administration of its own former standard-bearer, ex-President Chen Shui-bian.

The former president, who preceded Tsai as DPP chairperson, and his wife Wu Shu-jen have already both been sentenced to life in prison on September 11 for embezzling state funds and soliciting bribes while in office from 2000 to 2008.

But on Friday, the same Taipei court separately ruled that former first lady Wu had personally instructed then-Interior Minister Yu Cheng-hsien to deliver information to help a construction company win a bid to construct the Nangang Exhibition Center in Taipei.

Wu was given a kickback amounting to 2.5 percent of the total bid, resulting in her receiving over NT$90 million in cash.

In exchange for this bribe money, Wu instructed the interior minister to turn over the names of members of a government panel reviewing various bids to build the large structure.

After the list of names was secretly handed over to Wu's friend by one of Yu's aides in a hotel room, the construction company contacted the panel members and bribed them.

Not surprisingly, the company won the bid.

This is precisely the kind of “quality” that voters should expect if they cast their votes for the shiny cleaning crew depicted in the DPP's latest commercial. Ever since it was founded in 1986, the DPP has constantly claimed to be the main social force working to clean up corruption in Taiwan.

The theme of DPP candidates scrubbing and cleaning as depicted in the TV spot reiterates this claim, hinting that the ruling Kuomintang is corrupt and dirty.

But the fact of the matter is that during the eight years when the DPP was governing this country, an era that only just ended little over a year ago, top leaders all the way up to the president himself were soliciting bribes and shamelessly pocketing government funds. Even the former interior minister, a former Kaohsiung County commissioner hailing from the legendary Yu clan, Taiwan's most prominent political family, was made to play along so the first family could profit.

While Yu himself did not take any bribes, resulting in his suspended two-year jail sentence from the Taipei court, he was powerless to say “no” when asked to help the first lady help herself to bribes. It is therefore nothing less than ironic that hardly a year after Chen left office, the DPP is running advertisements proclaiming how “clean” it is and hinting that it would somehow clean up Taiwan.

Voters should remember that even after overwhelming evidence was produced of widespread corruption during the DPP governance period, DPP leaders have refused to draw a line between themselves and the corrupt former president.

Indeed, DPP candidates have lined up at the Taipei Detention Center for audiences with the former president seeking his endorsement in the ongoing election campaign.

Since losing power, the DPP has done nothing but whine about how much power it lost to the KMT.

Besides taking part in riots, the only notable action the DPP has undertaken since losing power has been whipping up angry nationalism, fear and paranoia against imports of what it claims is “poisoned” American beef. Besides lacking scientific evidence to back up its sensational claims, many of the DPP's own leaders certainly didn't seem to mind eating the “poison” food when they were living for decades in the United States.

Those same people also didn't object to taking their complaints about the KMT to the U.S. Congress during the authoritarian days when they faced arrest and imprisonment for their political views.

Now that they are free to hold political office in Taiwan, they have thanked their American hosts by rallying angry crowds against “poisonous” American beef and thumbing their noses in front of Uncle Sam. So much for “quality guaranteed.”