Fox tells Duterte: Please listen

“Please listen to the stories of the victims and the victims’ families. Your heart will be touched.”

That was the appeal of Australian missionary nun Patricia Fox to President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday after she urged Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra to overturn her deportation.

In a press conference at the University of the Philippines, Fox insisted she did nothing wrong but help the downtrodden as part of her missionary work.

“For me, I haven’t done anything wrong. This is not just my work but my responsibility as a nun,” she said.

Banned activity

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) revoked Fox’s missionary visa on April 25 over her supposed “involvement in partisan political activities,” but Fox appealed to Guevarra.

The BI claimed that Fox joined political rallies, which is prohibited by immigration laws.

But the 71-year-old Fox, a nun from the Sisters of Our Lady of Scion who has been living in the country since 1990, said she was being deported because she was being linked to the Left.

“One way to deflect the issue is to brand people Left, that they are evil,” said Fox, who has engaged in relief work in the Eastern Visayas and Bicol regions.

“That’s the basic cause of the Gospel,” she said. “Because people have a right to a decent standard of living. For me, these are just labels,” she added.

“The main issue here is when we came from the fact finding mission, there are massive human rights abuses going on there. And people are afraid. That is the biggest issue,” she said.

On Friday, the Department of Justice ordered the BI to comment within 10 days on the review that Fox’s lawyers sought on the same day. Fox was also given five days to reply to the comments.