The Bureau of Immigration has rejected the petition of Australian missionary Sister Patricia Fox to extend her missionary visa, an official said Sunday.
Spokeswoman Dana Krizia Sandoval said Immigration denied Fox’s request in an order signed on Thursday, and that it cited the deportation order it had previously issued against the Catholic nun.
“The BI already saw that Sister Fox violated the conditions of her stay and is considered undesirable, hence a deportation order was previously issued against her,” Sandoval said in a statement.
“Our legal team saw that approving the extension of her missionary visa will be inconsistent with the findings cited in her deportation order.”
Sandoval made her statement even as the Justice department on Sunday defended Immigration’s decision denying Fox’s request to extend her visa, which expired on Sept. 5.
“The denial of Sister Fox’s request for [the] extension of her missionary visa is consistent with the BI’s order of deportation, which is on appeal at the DoJ,” Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said in a text message to reporters.
“I understand, though, that Sister Fox is given an opportunity to apply instead for a temporary visitor’s visa.”
The petition to Immigration in behalf of Fox was filed by the Superior of the Religieuse de Notre Dame de Sion Inc.
Immigration said Fox had already spent 27 years in the country as a missionary, which meant she had already exceeded the prescribed length of stay of missionaries stipulated in the memorandum of agreement between Immigration and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
Based on the memo, foreign missionaries may stay in the country for only 10 years.
Sandoval said Fox had to apply for the downgrading of her visa.
“Downgrading will revert her status to a temporary visitor’s visa, with a 59-day validity starting from the date of the expiry of her missionary visa,” she said. With Rey E. Requejo