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A Hong Kong resident has returned from the Philippines after completing a prison sentence there, the Hong Kong government announced on 29 September. Immigration Department officers accompanied him home, and he reunited with his family at Hong Kong International Airport.
The government did not name the man in the announcement. The case history it described matches that of Tang Lung-wai, whose imprisonment in the Philippines has been the subject of Hong Kong Legislative Council questions and recent reporting by the South China Morning Post.
A case dating back to 2000
Tang was arrested in the Philippines in 2000 in a methamphetamine case. He was convicted in 2011 after years on remand and received a lengthy prison sentence. He maintained that he had been wrongly convicted, but his appeal was ultimately dismissed. In a 2020 Legislative Council reply, the Hong Kong government said it had helped him obtain Philippine travel records for use in his appeal and would continue to assist while respecting Philippine jurisdiction.
His return did not follow directly from the end of his sentence. In August, his family told the South China Morning Post that a Philippine court had counted good conduct allowances towards his sentence, but he remained in custody while arrangements for his departure were processed. His brother told HK01 that a court had ordered his release on 30 July. That account of the order has not been independently verified for this report.
The process suffered a further setback in late August. Tang’s Philippine lawyer told the South China Morning Post that he had been taken to the Philippine Bureau of Immigration, then returned to New Bilibid Prison after government offices closed during a typhoon. The lawyer characterised his continued detention as unlawful; that was her assessment, rather than a finding established in the Hong Kong government’s announcement.
How his return was arranged
According to the Hong Kong government, the Immigration Department had been in contact with Tang’s family since receiving an assistance request in 2003. It said the department worked with the Office of the Commissioner of China’s Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong and the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines throughout the case. Embassy officials visited him in prison and contacted Philippine judicial authorities.
Once officials learned that the sentence had been completed, the department and embassy contacted the relevant Philippine authorities, arranged travel documents and coordinated his journey. Immigration officers travelled to the Philippines to assist with the arrangements. The government said Tang and his family thanked the authorities for their help and that the department would continue to provide assistance after his return.
The announcement confirms his arrival in Hong Kong, but does not specify when he left Philippine custody or explain each step between the court’s decision and his departure. Those details matter given the delay his family and lawyer described in August.
