THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) announced on Sunday it denied the request of 72-year-old Australian missionary Sister Patricia Fox to extend her missionary visa in light of the deportation order the BI earlier issued against her.
Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra immediately defended the decision of the BI, saying it was consistent with the agency’s deportation order against Fox, which the latter has appealed before the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“The denial of Sister Fox’s request for extension of her missionary visa is consistent with the BI’s order of deportation, which is on appeal at the DOJ,” Guevarra said. “I understand, though, that Sister Fox is given an opportunity to apply instead for a temporary visitor’s visa.”
“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,” BI Spokesman Dana Krizia M. Sandoval said. “Our legal team saw that approving the extension of her missionary visa will be inconsistent with the findings cited in her deportation order.”
The Superior of the Religieuse De Notre Dame De Sion Inc. filed the petition for the extension of Fox’s visa.
In its two-page order, the BI said Fox had already spent 27 years in the country as a missionary. However, under the memorandum of agreement between the BI and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, foreign missionaries can stay in the country for only 10 years.
“She is required to apply for the downgrading of her visa within 15 days from receipt of the denial order,” Sandoval said.
Sandoval explained that 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.
Earlier, Fox filed a petition before the DOJ seeking to reverse the final decision issued by the BI ordering her deportation for violating the terms and conditions of the missionary visa that the agency issued to her and including her name in the blacklist. Fox, through National Union of People’s Lawyers Secretary-General Edre U. Olalia, insisted the 72-year-old missionary did not commit illegal acts that would justify her deportation from the country.
Fox is being accused of violating the terms and conditions of her visa when she participated in rallies, press conferences and fact-finding missions.
The BI has established that Fox violated “the limitations and conditions of Commonwealth Act 613, Section 9 [g] missionary visa and undesirable under Article 2711, Section 69 and order her deportation to Australia, subject to her submission of all appropriate clearance and the inclusion of her name in the BI’s blacklist, thus barring her re-entry into the country.” The bureau cited as basis for its order several photographs showing that she engaged in several partisan political activities sometime in 2013, 2016, 2017 and 2018—including those where she reportedly demanded for the release of political prisoners, joined the rallies for land distribution in Hacienda Luisita and a workers’ rally in Davao City.
The agency also considered statements made by President Duterte that the Australian nun is an undesirable alien following her participation in protest rallies.
Fox, on the other hand, insisted that the activities she joined or supported were neither political not partisan but were part of her apostolate and missionary work.