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MANILA – An Australian nun who had criticized President Rodrigo Duterte's policies, including his brutal war on drugs, was scheduled to leave the Philippines on Saturday, after the president ordered his arrest and deportation.
The nun, Sister Patricia Fox, 71, who has worked in the Philippines for almost 30 years, has been forced to expulsion from the country. She attended the St. Joseph's Church in Manila before leaving for the airport, accompanied by a motorcade of supporters.
"I will continue to seek justice for the victims and I can support the people's struggle for true peace based justice," Sister Fox said.
She added that it would not please Mr. Duterte, but he would consider the plight of "poor and small people, not just the military and business people."
Sister Fox has long been involved in political and social activism in the Philippines, and Duterte took office in 2016 vigilant.
Mr. Duterte cited such criticism in April when he said that the Office of Immigration to arrest and deport the nun. "You are a foreigner, who are you?" He said. "You do not have the right to criticize us. Do not insult us every time you open your mouth. "
Sister Fox, who has been reprieved from deportation when the Justice Department said the Immigration Bureau had overstepped its authority. But since then, the office has downgraded its missionary visa to a temporary visa, which was due to expire on Saturday.
"You can not go to a visa, so I'm going to go out and take my advocacy elsewhere," Sister Fox said on Saturday.
The Duterte administration has taken similar action against a number of foreign policies of the president's policies. In August, the Immigration Bureau detained an 84-year-old Australian professor, Gill Boehringer, at the Manila airport and barred him from entering the country because he had joined Duterte.
Also this year, three foreign missions, including an American, They have been detained and deported in the Philippines to investigate allegations that the country has been abused there, including the killing of at least eight members of an indigenous community in the province of Lake Sebu.
One of Sister Fox's lawyers, Katherine Panguban, said they would continue to appeal to the office while he was born in Melbourne. "This clearly shows that this government is intolerant of dissent," Ms. Panguban said of the case.
Officials in the Catholic Church, which has had considerable influence in the Philippines and has been active in the opposition to Mr. Duterte, said Sister Fox's expulsion was a "blow to the missionary spirit" of the church.
"The government should have taken the lead in the case of the embattled nun," said Father Jerome Secillano of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
Mr. Duterte has always been published for the church and is based on a religion based on himself. He did so again on Thursday, which was All Saints' Day, during a visit to the northern Philippines.
"The Catholics are crazy. We do not even know those saints, who those fools are, those drunkards, "he said in a mix of English and Tagalog.
"I'll give you one saint boss so you do not go astray," he said. "Get a hold of a picture of me. Place that in your altar. Saint Rodrigo. "
