SISTER Patricia Anne Fox, the Australian nun who angered President Rodrigo Duterte by joining anti-government protests, called on Filipinos to unite and fight human rights abuses ahead of her forced departure from the country.
FAREWELL Sister Patricia Fox visits Baclaran Church before her flight to Australia on Saturday. She said her goodbyes to kids in Baclaran and other missionaries who helped her during her stay in the country. PHOTO BY CJ GERARD SEGUIA
Fox left the Philippines on Saturday for Australia after the Bureau of Immigration ordered her deported months ago and downgraded her missionary visa to a temporary visitor’s visa. Her downgraded visa expired on Saturday.
During a farewell news conference, the 71-year-old Fox called on Filipinos to speak up and help the marginalized fight to gain land, houses and jobs.
She told The Associated Press that Duterte’s deadly anti-drug crackdown was “horribly barbaric” and vowed to return if allowed to resume her 27 years of missionary work for the poor.
Fox landed in the Philippines in 1990 as a member of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, a congregation of nuns founded in France in 1847 and famed for harboring Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution in World War 2.
A former lawyer who worked with indigent clients in Australia, Fox has been educating landless Filipino farm hands and factory workers about their rights.
No sworn statements
Fox’s lawyers and supporters called out the Bureau of Immigration (BI) for relying on an “illegal basis” to support the missionary’s deportation case.
Fox’s lawyer, Jobert Pahilaga said the BI should present more concrete arguments besides the President’s statement.
“I have been a lawyer for a long time now and this is the first time that a public statement of the President became a legal basis for making legal decisions,” Pahilaga said.
Pahilaga added that the President’s pronouncements could not be used as legal basis for Fox’s deportation case because it was not a sworn statement.
“What the President said should not be the basis for the deportation of Sister Pat. It was not a sworn statement and Duterte did not submit legal and concrete files supporting his accusations,” Pahilaga stressed.
“The fight is not over for us, we are in high hopes that the Department of Justice (DoJ) would hear us out and help us,” Pahilaga told the reporters.
Sol Taule, also one of Fox’s lawyers, said that their team had a bigger chance of winning the case because it had a long list of evidence.
Sol Taule, also one of Fox’s lawyers, said that their team had a bigger chance of winning the case because it had a long list of evidence.
“But because the government has all the machineries and institutions to use, they can easily sway whatever case they want to sway, they can make every case run in their favor,” Taule told The Manila Times.
“We believe that there is ‘politics’ going on inside this case,” Taule added.
In April, the immigration bureau arrested Fox following a “fact-finding and solidarity mission” in Mindanao.
President Duterte accused Fox of “meddling with internal politics by joining human’s rights protests.”
On April 23, the bureau’s Board of Commissioners issued an order to deport Fox because the missionary nun was involved in “partisan political activities.”
In October, the bureau downgraded Fox’s visa to a temporary tourist visa that was valid for only 59 days from the day her missionary visa expired on September 5.
In April, Manila also expelled Italian Giacomo Filibeck, deputy secretary general of the Party of European Socialists, who had condemned Duterte’s anti-drug war.
Four months later Australian rights activist Gill Boehringer, 84, was barred entry for having attended a protest in 2015, allegedly in violation of immigration laws.
Last week, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra told AFP that Fox needed to leave the Philippines because her visa was set to expire, even though the deportation case against her is not resolved.
“If Sister Fox eventually wins, her name will be removed from the immigration blacklist and she may return to the Philippines,” he said.
With a reports from AP and AFP
https://www.manilatimes.net/patricia-fox-leaves/461989/
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