Hongkonger Tang Lung-wai Returns After 26 Years
AM730 · 2 SOURCES1 day ago5 MIN
Summary
A 55-year-old Hong Kong man, identified as Tang Lung-wai (鄧龍威), returned to Hong Kong on Tuesday under the escort of Immigration Department officers after completing his sentence in the Philippines in a drug case dating back to 2000. Before leaving Manila, Tang said he had spent 26 years in “hell” and survived by holding on to hope, while separate accounts of Philippine jails pointed to extreme overcrowding, foul food and harsh daily conditions.
Key Points
- Tang and another Hong Kong man were charged with drug possession in the Philippines in 2000, and after 11 years in custody he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment
- In 2024, the Philippines changed how sentence reductions for good conduct were calculated, allowing life prisoners who had served more than 21 and a half years to apply for release
- A court later confirmed that Tang’s sentence expired on July 30 this year, and he flew back to Hong Kong on Tuesday from Manila with three Hong Kong Immigration Department officers
- Tang said prison roll call took place four times a day, and he would kneel on a football field looking at passing aircraft and wondering when he could finally return home
- Reports cited by Sing Tao described Philippine jails where cells built for 30 inmates were sometimes packed with 200, while former inmate Raymund Narag recalled rotten dried fish meals containing nails and cockroaches
Why It Matters
Tang’s return closes a long-running case that drew attention in Hong Kong because of the length of his imprisonment and his insistence that he had been wrongly convicted. For Hong Kong readers, the case also refocuses attention on the treatment of prisoners in severely overcrowded Philippine detention facilities and on the practical challenges Tang says he now faces in rebuilding his life.