Wong back, ready to face Senate

Kim Wong, also named Wong Kam-sin, tagged by military intelligence chief Col. Victor Corpus as Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s contact man with an international drug syndicate, returned to the country yesterday to clear his name.

Wong, who owns a restaurant chain in Manila, flew in aboard a Philippine Airlines jet from Hong Kong.

"I am willing to face the Senate investigation," he told reporters after disembarking from the plane, adding he had no knowledge of the accusations hurled against him by Corpus, head of of the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP).

Corpus charged that Wong was the alleged drug financier of Lacson, adding that the Chinese even paid for the senator’s cellular phone bills when he was still chief of the Philippine National Police.

Lacson admitted that he received a cellphone from Wong, but clarified that he personally paid for his phone bills.

Lacson added that he has since returned the cellphone to Wong.

Wong, whom Corpus also accused of smuggling billion-peso shabu shipments into the country, used his Chinese passport when he left Manila last Tuesday, as well as for his return flight.

Former Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim has also alleged that Wong was a drug lord who had a hand in last year’s slaying of Alejandro Sy, a civilian informer of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force headed by Lacson.

But Mayor Lito Atienza, a friend of Wong, said his predecessor was merely sour-graping.

Meanwhile, Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo said Wong was not in the bureau’s hold departure list, hence, there was no legal basis to bar him from leaving the country.

Domingo clarified that apart from the court, only Malacañang and the justice department can order Immigration to place a particular person in the hold departure list.

She said the immigration commissioner used to have the authority to prevent any person from leaving, but has been stripped of such power by the justice department.