Special inmates

Controversy has hounded drug convict Yu Yuk Lai, who is serving a life term in the Correctional Institution for Women. In several previous reports, Yu was accused of enjoying prolonged stays in a private hospital in Manila’s Chinatown, sometimes lasting several months.

Even before her conviction, Yu always seemed to find officials with a soft spot for her. When she was a detainee on trial, she was caught playing baccarat in a Manila casino. She was supposed to be confined in a hospital at the time for a serious ailment. The Supreme Court later fired Manila judge Manuel Muro for approving Yu’s hospital furlough even if her drug trafficking case did not allow bail. The SC also fired Court of Appeals justice Demetrio Demetria, stripped him of his benefits and barred him perpetually from public office for interceding on behalf of Yu.

Convicted of drug trafficking involving three kilos of shabu, Yu began serving her life term in the CIW in September 2001. In November last year, raiders of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency seized P5 million worth of shabu and bank checks in her CIW cell. In a follow-up operation, the PDEA arrested Yu’s daughter Diana Yu Uy in a condominium unit in Manila, and charged her with running the mother’s drug operations outside prison.

It seems, however, that Yu’s luck in dealing with the criminal justice system extends to her daughter. Last Thursday, Judge Daniel Villanueva of the Manila Regional Trial Court’s Branch 49 threw out the drug case against Diana Uy. Villanueva ruled that the shabu recovered from Uy was planted and inadmissible as evidence.

PDEA chief Aaron Aquino denied planting the shabu and announced that the agency would appeal the case. Aquino, who has enjoyed a vindication of sorts in his tiff with the Bureau of Customs, must now contend with the role of the courts in the campaign against illegal drugs.