A matter of deportation
On June 19, 2018, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) issued an order deporting Australian nun Patricia Anne Fox, provincial superior of the Our Lady of Sion Sisters, and included her in the bureau’s blacklist. The Board of Commissioners cited her “in violation of 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… and the inclusion of her name in the BI’s blacklist, thus barring her re-entry into the country.”
Detractors assess this event as more reflective of the country’s fear towards a simple nun.
In her appeal of the resolution, Sr. Fox argued that “the Honorable Office has essentially stated that since the President has already spoken, the officials of the Honorable Office, under the doctrine of qualified political agency or alter ego principle, have to abide by the statement of the President,” adding: “With due respect, that is wrong. To sanction that argument would be to state that decisions should be based on the public pronouncement of the President irrespective of the merits of the case and the arguments of the parties.”
Strictly speaking, deportation refers to “the removal from a country of an alien whose presence is unlawful or prejudicial.” But in some instances, it also referred to forcible resettlement of individuals to regions outside their hometown but still within their country of origin.
Under the Spanish rule, the governor general had the power of exile and deportation, which was contrary to the constitutional system enforced in the Philippines, particularly against aliens.
Foreigners seeking admission to the country could be expelled by immigration authorities even if their cases were not judicially reviewed, and this guideline included aliens who were residing in the island. This power to exile and deport was also used against Emilio Aguinaldo, who was exiled to Hong Kong; Andres Bonifacio to Guam; and Jose P. Rizal to Dapitan.
Aguinaldo’s 1897 exile, however was unsettling. He agreed to be banished from the Philippines in exchange of PhP400 thousand from the Spanish government, which would have supported him in his retirement. Due to guile or simple trickery, he used his stay in Hong Kong to organize a revolutionary government known as the Hong Kong Junta.
Historically, outside Sister Fox’s case, there are other landmark immigration cases, the most notable being the decision to deport R. McCulloch Dick, editor-publisher of Free Press, in January 1915 as an undesirable alien. He appealed to the Supreme Court and got a positive ruling.
In the 1918 celebrated Gardenia case, women from the red-light district of Manila, under the auspices of the Bureau of Labor, were forcibly deported to Davao “for the ostensible purpose of overcoming the competition of Japanese at that point.”
Another Philippine immigration case that involved foreign journalists was that of Quintin and Rizal Yuyitung. In March 1962, during the Macapagal admin, the brothers were arrested and jailed for publishing articles that were considered pro-communist, anti-Filipino, subversive, and libelous. Being Taiwanese nationals, they were subjected to deportation proceedings that would drag for years and culminating in ‘apology and retraction’ six years later.
Despite this coercive compromise, the Marcos government resurrected the trumped-up case in March 1970 and added currency black-marketing charge to their case, which resulted in their re-arrest. While on bail and contesting their case, they were kidnapped and flown to Taiwan where they were held incommunicado in a military garrison.
A Taiwanese court sentenced them to brief prison terms and after being released from detention flew to the United States upon learning that the Philippines was under martial rule. They later returned to the country after Marcos was deposed in a popular uprising.
During the rise of plantation economy in Davao, most of the tenants employed on share basis were Japanese manpower. They followed rigid guidelines that carried penalty, especially when parcels of hemp intended for agents of exporters were adulterated. The first offense carried a PhP50 fine, the second for the confiscation of parcels, and the third was deportation.
It is interesting to note that the Philippine legislature under American rule passed a law—that is, Act 2113—requiring aliens to be deported to undergo due process of law. Acts, especially immigration decisions were subject to the review of courts.
In recent decades, deportation has become a necessary security tool against individuals connected with subversive and insurgent groups, some of them involved in pedophile acts, human trafficking, overstaying, working without permit, being undocumented, illegal recruitment, drugs, cyberspace sex, smuggling, and a roster of other offenses.
In 2017 alone, the immigration bureau reported that a total 1,508 illegal aliens, higher than the previous year, were deported for violating the country’s antiquated immigration law.
The government-owned Philippine News Agency reported that of the more than a thousand deportees, a total of 232 fugitives were wanted for serious crimes in their homelands. More than two-thirds or 1,145 of the deportees were Chinese arrested in 2016 at the Fontana Hotel in Clark, Pampanga, for illegal online gaming operations.
By nationality, the Chinese (1,248) topped the list of deportees followed by Koreans (115), Indians (33), Americans (29), Vietnamese (13), and Japanese (11).
