Australian missionary nun Patricia Fox is not leaving the country without a fight.
Fox has asked the immigration bureau to dismiss the deportation proceedings against her, as she argued that she had joined rallies as part of her tasks as a missionary.
“Therefore, they are not political activities per se but also religious activities within the evangelization and missionary works of religious persons,” she said in a 26-page counter-affidavit which she submitted to the BI on Friday morning.
She also filed a supplemental motion for reconsideration to ask the BI to reinstate her canceled missionary visa, arguing that the order violates her right to due process and prevented her from exercising her right to free expression.
The BI has scheduled the 71-year-old Fox’s deportation on May 25 after President Rodrigo Duterte accused her of political activism that violates the rules of her visa.
The Melbourne, Australian native arrived in the Philippines as a member of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, a congregation of nuns founded in France in 1847 and is reknown for hiding Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution in World War II.
Fox, a former lawyer by profession before becoming a nun, said she has been educating landless Filipino farm hands and factory workers about their rights.
Fox said she apparently angered the president after she joined a fact-finding mission in April to investigate alleged abuses against farmers, including killings and evictions by soldiers fighting guerrillas in the southern Philippines.
“I gave a solidarity statement saying the social teachings of the Catholic Church say you have the right to unionize, you have the right to just wages, you have the right to security of tenure,” she said.
