Australian nun Patricia Fox gets to stay in the Philippines, at least for now.
This was announced by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a statement released yesterday. In the statement, the DOJ said that it has nullified the Bureau of Immigration’s (BI) controversial order to forfeit Fox’s missionary visa.
According to Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, the BI’s order had no legal basis.
“Our existing immigration laws outline what the BI can do to foreigners and their papers—including visas—when they commit certain acts within Philippine territory. What the BI did in this case is beyond what the law provides, that is why it has to be struck down,” he said in the statement.
While Fox’s win was based on a technicality, it allows her to stay in the Philippines until a decision is made on the pending deportation charges against her.
The 71-year-old Fox has been living in the Philippines and doing missionary work in the country for close to three decades but in April, the BI arrested Fox and ordered for her to leave by the end of May for allegedly engaging in partisan political activities.
In a public speech in April, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he takes “full responsibility” for the nun’s temporary detainment at the BI office and admitted that he had ordered the department to investigate the nun.
The president also had harsh words for Fox during his speech.
“Don’t let her in because that nun has no shame,” he said in Filipino. “You nun, why don’t you criticize your own government, the way you handled the refugees hungry and dying, and you turned them back to the open sea? Why don’t you rant there?”
Since living in the Philippines, Fox has joined human rights missions in Mindanao and has stood up for the rights of farmers, the urban poor, and indigenous peoples.
Fox filed an appeal to reinstate her missionary visa but was denied by the BI. The DOJ’s latest decision to let her stay was the result of a petition she filed in the department last month.
Fox’s case made international headlines especially because it came just a day after the deportation of another foreign visitor, the European Socialist Party official Giacomo Filibeck.
Fox still faces deportation proceedings because the DOJ is still open to a visa cancellation case.
“The BI treated this as a case for visa forfeiture instead of one for visa cancellation. As a result, the bureau has yet to decide whether the supposed actions of Fox do indeed justify the cancellation of her visa.
“It would therefore be premature for us at the DOJ to decide that matter now. For that reason, we are returning this case to the BI for its proper disposition,” Guevarra said in the statement.
While talking to reporters yesterday, Fox vowed to continue her missionary work while in the country.
“I will continue [doing missionary work] because that’s the expression of my mission,” she said. “That’s the teaching of the Church, to do missionary work. I’m not doing anything wrong anyway.”
