PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte said Wednesday that he had personally ordered the detention of an elderly Australian Catholic nun, warning that any foreign critics of his government face deportation.
Sister Patricia Fox, 71, a longtime resident of the Philippines, was detained by the immigration bureau on Monday on suspicion of engaging in political activities.
She was released without charges the next day.
“It was not the military who arrested the nun. It was upon my orders,” Duterte said in a speech to soldiers on Wednesday.
“I ordered her to be investigated… for disorderly conduct.”
Duterte has previously launched into scathing verbal attacks on critics of his deadly drugs war, in which thousands of people have died.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor launched a preliminary investigation in February into allegations of extrajudicial killings.
This prompted Duterte to withdraw from the ICC and threaten to arrest the chief prosecutor if she comes to the Philippines.
“You insult me under the cloak of being a Catholic priest, and you are a foreigner! Who are you? It is a violation of sovereignty,” Duterte said, apparently referring to Fox.
He said he had the power to deport people and planned to instruct authorities: “Don’t let her in because that nun has a shameless mouth.”
Fox, a missionary of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, joined an international fact-finding mission in the southern Philippines earlier this month to look into reported violations of the rights of farmers and indigenous people, her lawyer said.
In an interview with Manila’s ABS-CBN network after her release, Fox insisted: “I haven’t been engaged (in) party politics.”
Duterte told his political opponents not to invite critics to the country and warned that foreigners who “malign and defame” the government would be arrested.
On Sunday, Manila deported Italian Giacomo Filibeck, deputy secretary general of the Party of European Socialists, who had previously condemned “extrajudicial killings” in Duterte’s anti-drug crackdown.
Duterte’s remarks on Fox seemed to be at odds with those of his spokesman, who said a formal apology would be issued to the Australian nun.
“Apologies are in order,” said Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque, after the Bureau of Immigration arrested Fox over conflicting reports that it received.
—President Rodrigo Duterte, warning leftist groups not to invite foreigners who are critical of the government.
However, Roque said that there is a law that foreigners may not interfere with local politics.
“There really is a law that forbids foreigners from interfering with local politics, and no government would really want foreign intervention,” Roque added.
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Wednesday said the arrest of Fox could hurt the country’s tourism campaign.
He urged the Bureau of Immigration to be more prudent before acting against a foreign visitor.
But Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III said foreigners who set foot on Philippine soil must remember they are not above Philippine laws.
“There is a law here in the Philippines [and this is also generally the rule in many countries] that foreigners are not allowed to meddle in our internal politics or political matters,” Pimentel said in a statement.
“If we want Filipinos to follow our laws then we should show our own people that foreigners are not above our laws,” he added.
The Bureau of Immigration deported Filibeck for denouncing the killings related to the administration’s campaign against illegal drugs when he visited the country last year.
“He was not supposed to do that because being a tourist he does not enjoy the rights and privileges of a Philippine citizen, particularly the exercise of political rights, which are exclusively reserved to Filipinos,” Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente.
Pimentel said that when he visits other countries, he is very careful not to interfere with their domestic political issues, as he knows their laws and he is a law-abiding citizen.
“These foreigners who come here should not feel that they are superior to us and hence above our laws. All should follow the law,” he added.
Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said Filibeck is an “undesirable alien.”