Faces of the News: Alex Yu

FEBRUARY 16, 2017
Alex Yu during the Senate hearing on the Jack Lam bribery case.
INQUIRER PHOTO/LYN RILLON

As far as Alexander Yu was concerned, he was only arranging bail for the release of hundreds of Chinese nationals under detention, and not paying off an extortion attempt. The interpreter of Chinese casino magnate Jack Lam made this testimony during the Senate blue ribbon committee’s 8-hour hearing on Thursday. Appearing at the hearing for the first time, crisply suited Yu, also a VIP services officer at one of Lam’s casinos, matter-of-factly narrated how he had arranged for the payment of P50 million to then immigration officers Al Argosino and Michael Robles, through Wenceslao “Wally” Sombero. “I was the one instructed to get the money,” he told senators. “What I knew was that it was for the release of the workers,” who were arrested at Lam’s Fontana Leisure Parks and Casino in Pampanga.