Philippine Daily Inquirer

2 POLICE ESCORTS OF DRUG QUEEN’S DAUGHTER FACE AX

- By Jeannette I. Andrade @jiandradeI­NQ

The two police escorts of the daughter of convicted Taiwanese drug dealer Yu Yuk Lai faced charges and removal from the service, Philippine National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa said on Wednesday.

Yu’s daughter, Diane Yu Uy, was arrested in an early Monday morning raid on her condominiu­m unit in San Miguel, Manila, that resulted in the seizure of some 2 kilos of “shabu” (crystal meth) worth P10 million.

Dela Rosa said that PO3 Walter Vidad and PO2 Faizal Sawadjaan, both of the Police Security and Protection Group (PSPG), would be charged administra­tively for serious neglect of duty.

Both were aware

Sawadjaan began securing Uy, a former kidnap victim, in 2010, while Vidad came on board in 2013. Both were aware that she was the daughter of Yu, but did not inform their superiors about this, Dela Rosa said.

“For not reporting that to their immediate superiors, they are administra­tively liable for serious neglect of duty and for that, I will make sure that they are removed from the service,” he told reporters in a press conference.

The PNP chief said their assignment as security escorts to Uy was legitimate because of a threat on her life as a former kidnap victim, saying “the sins of the mother are not necessaril­y the daughter’s.”

Still, they could have simply told the PSPG higher-ups of her relation to Yu, who was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison on drug charges, he said.

“The problem is the higher authoritie­s of the PSPG were blind to the fact that she was Yu Yuk Lai’s daughter because these two [policemen] never told them,” Dela Rosa said.

Vidad and Sawadjaan admitted to knowing this because they accompanie­d her in her visits to her mother at the Correction­al Institutio­n for Women, he said.

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