The investigation into an Australian missionary detained by immigration authorities for allegedly joining anti-government protests was ordered by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, he said yesterday.
“It was upon my orders, implemented by the Bureau of Immigration, and I take full responsibility, legal or otherwise, for this incident,”
Duterte said in a speech at a ceremony to change command in the military.
“I ordered her to be investigated, not deported at once, not arrested, but to invite her to an investigation for disorderly conduct,” he added, warning that he would order the arrest of any foreigner who disrespects Philippine sovereignty.
“Philippine laws provide that I can deport you or refuse your entry if you are an undesirable alien,” he said. “Beginning today, I will decide who gets in, who gets out.You want to question that, you go to court and I will follow.”
“But until then, you do not mess up with the sovereignty of this country,” he added.
“I assure you: if you begin to malign, defame government in any of those rallies there, I will order your arrest.”
Patricia Fox, the 71-year-old nun with the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion, was arrested on Monday and detained for 24 hours at the immigration bureau’s main office.
She was released on Tuesday after presenting her passport and a missionary visa valid until September, but immigration authorities said she was still under investigation and could eventually be deported.
Fox said Tuesday she has lived in the Philippines for 27 years and has only ever attended protests advocating human rights, never ones that could be seen as anti-government.
She said the events she attended advocated rights for farmers, indigenous people and women.
Duterte said Fox “has no shame” in criticising his government, and should return to Australia to rant there.
“Why don’t you criticise 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,” he said.
“Here, it is the criminals that I ordered killed. How about you?” he added.
Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano earlier stressed that foreigners are expected to follow the limitations of the visas given to them: Exercising political rights is not one of the privileges when visiting the Philippines.
“In general, anyone, whether they are 12 years old, 50 years old or 70 years old, if they are a foreigner and they get involved in partisan political activities in the Philippines, then they are not welcome because it interferes in our political rights, it interferes with our right to self determination,” he said.
The policy does not merely apply to opposition support, Cayetano told a media forum.
“If a foreigner goes to the street and says to the president, ‘Continue your drug war,’ we will also tell him to leave, because it’s not part of his political rights to do that,” he said.
Fox’s detention followed the deportation on Sunday of EU politician Giacomo Filibeck, who was barred from entering the country as a guest of a local socialist political party.
The Bureau of Immigration said Filibeck was blacklisted for violating his tourist visa when he joined a human rights mission to investigate a spate of killings linked to the government’s campaign against illegal drugs during a visit in October. The delegation later denounced the killings in a press conference where they also held anti-government placards.
According to police, more than 4,000 suspects have been killed in anti-drug operations since the start of Duterte’s administration on July 1, 2016.
But rights groups estimate the death toll at between 12,000 and 13,000, including victims of hired or vigilante killers.




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