Cebu traders had easy time bringing in shabu, 2 former employees claim

CEBU CITY — Businessmen Peter Lim and his brother Wellington are allegedly untouchables at the Mactan airport and have an easy time smuggling shabu from Hong Kong because of the connivance of certain Customs and Immigration personnel.

This was the claim made by two former Lim employees at a congressional hearing yesterday, a week after they said at an earlier hearing that the Lim brothers were drug lords.

Peter and Wellington Lim, who have since denied being drug lords as alleged by Bernard Liu and Ananias Dy and have subsequently sued their former employees for libel, showed up at the hearing to again deny the allegations.

But Liu went on with his barrage of accusations.

"Our baggages were not subjected to thorough examination. If our luggage was opened, Customs people would only open the upper portion just to show the public that is was done," Liu said in a prepared affidavit.

Liu, who had worked for the Lims the past 16 years collecting money from the nightclubs they own, said these accomplices were in turn given privileges and discounts at these nightclubs.

But Ananias Dy, the other witness who used to be a bodyguard of Peter Lim had not been as consistent in his testimony when interrogated by members of the committee.

Dy testified that sometime in the late 1980s he escorted a shipment to Manila that included a box of white crystalline substance he was sure to be shabu.

But upon interrogation, Dy admitted he had never touched, smelled or tasted shabu and that he thought the box contained shabu only because of what he had heard.

Dy admitted he could not identify the difference between alum, locally known as "tawas," and shabu. — Freeman News Service