Dads pass ‘persona non grata’ resolution for UK-born woman

ILOILO CITY—The city council has declared a British-born woman who cried rape and captivity in the Philippines as “persona non grata” for supposedly tarnishing the image of the city where, the woman had said in a New Zealand newspaper report, her ordeal began.

The 14-member council passed the persona non grata resolution unanimously in its regular session on Wednesday.

The resolution said the city was closing its doors to Elizabeth Jones, a British-born woman now residing in New Zealand and who said she was repeatedly raped and kept captive for five months in the Philippines.

While she didn’t specify where in the Philippines the abuses took place, Jones was quoted by the New Zealand Herald as saying her ordeal started in this city where she was picked up at the airport to supposedly take part in a martial arts training program to which she was invited through Facebook.

Jones, in a Sept. 27 report by the New Zealand Herald, stood by her story. “No one else has the right to tell me what did or did not happen,” the New Zealand paper quoted Jones as saying.

The paper said Jones might have been confused with dates and places “because of the trauma she suffered.”

“Her statements were just a product of her imagination,” said Councilor Plaridel Nava, author of the resolution.