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An Australian nun who has angered the Philippine president by joining anti-government protests has used her last hours in the country on Saturday to call on Filipinos to unite and fight against human rights abuses.
Sister Patricia Anne Fox left the Philippines for Australia on Saturday night, immigration officials said. The Immigration Bureau ordered his deportation in July, blacklisted him, and then demoted his missionary visa into a temporary visitor visa, which expired Saturday.
President Rodrigo Duterte has always criticized his leadership, especially from outsiders like Fox, who he says has no right to interfere in Philippine affairs. Most of the critics focused on his bloody anti-drug campaign, which left thousands dead, alarmed Western governments and human rights groups, and sparked two mass murder complaints to the International Criminal Court. .
During a farewell press conference in a Catholic school before leaving for the Manila airport with a convoy of supporters, Mr. Fox, 71, called on Filipinos to take the to help the marginalized fight for land, housing and employment.
"The big challenge now is not to lose hope, to know that if we all act together, we can make changes," said Fox.
"Pope Francis said that if you are a Christian and that human rights violations are massive … you must act, make noise." Where are the oppressed, church members should to be there, not only talking but with them and, hopefully, more vocal, "she says.
She will come back if she is allowed
Fox told the Associated Press by telephone separately that Duterte's drug crackdown was "horribly barbaric" and that she had vowed to return to the country if she was allowed to resume her 27 years of missionary work with poor.
"I know a lot of mothers, wives who have lost someone, you do not have the right to lead a life like this without justice," Fox said.
Dozens of activists, workers, priests, nuns and tribal members, some in tears, thanked Fox by celebrating a Mass in his honor before sending him to the church. ;airport. A group of lawyers supporting Fox, the National Union of People's Lawyers, said that by persecuting a frail and unobtrusive missionary, Duterte had turned her into an "overnight rock star".
Known for his soft voice, Fox is coordinator of an order of Roman Catholic nuns and has worked for the poor in the Philippines. It promotes human rights and the welfare of workers, farmers and ethnic groups, and has spoken out against Duterte and his government, which has also been criticized for dissuading dissent.
The immigration office said that Ms. Fox had violated her missionary visa by venturing well beyond her community in the Quezon suburb of Manila, and had ingested in domestic politics by participating in demonstrations and press conferences dealing with "political issues and human rights opposed to the government".
Fox's lawyers said they joined the marginalized as part of his missionary work and described the Duterte administration's actions as "political persecution." They feared that Fox's expulsion movement would undermine the crucial civic and religious work of foreign missionaries in the country.
Besides Fox, the government has separately prevented a critical Italian politician, Giacomo Filibeck, and another Australian, Gill Hale Boehringer, from entering the Philippines this year.
"The law is clear: the entry and admission of a stranger is a matter of privilege and not a right," said Saturday the spokeswoman for the Immigration Bureau, Dana Sandoval.
