FORMER OMBUDSMAN Conchita Carpio Morales was barred entry to Hong Kong Tuesday for allegedly being a security threat.
“…But how can a 78-year-old former anti-corruption official, with a pristine 52-year public service record, be a security threat or risk to them?” asked her lawyer Anne Marie Corominas the question that really begged to be asked. Though allowed entry after four hours in detention, Morales declined and opted to return to Manila.
“That was bullying.” So declared Morales upon arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. “If it’s not bullying, how will you call it? I think someone came up with the theory [of] shock and awe. But I wasn’t shocked and I wasn’t awed. I was just angry.”
Adding that the experience has not changed her position any in her stand against Chinese “atrocious actions” in the West Philippine Sea which she raised at the International Criminal Court.
Morales’ plight brings to mind that of another septuagenarian lady, but on Philippine soil.
Sister Patricia Fox, 71, who spent almost three decades of mission work in the country was branded a “national security threat,” stripped of her missionary visa, and ultimately ordered to leave the Philippines.
She was badmouthed, to say the least, by President Duterte himself, apparently piqued by her participation in a fact-finding mission to investigate alleged abuses against farmers, including killings and evictions by soldiers fighting guerrillas in Mindanao.
“The big challenge now is not to lose hope, to know that if we all move together, we can bring about change,” the Australian nun said upon arrival in her home country.
Furthered she: “Pope Francis said that if you’re a Christian and there’s massive human rights violations… you should take action, make noise. Where the oppressed are, the church people should be there, not only always talking but with them and hopefully more vocal.”
Fox. Morales. On the side of rightness, exemplars of courage.
Yes, the vassal and his patron could only resort to bullying, in mortal fear of them.
