An 84-year-old Australian human rights "champion" has been detained in the Philippines after being blacklisted for attending a rally in the country nearly three years ago.
The Bureau of Immigration confirmed NSW Professor Gill Boehringer was detained at Manila's international airport and denied entry into the country after arriving on a flight from China on Wednesday local time.
"He was excluded for being blacklisted," spokeswoman Dana Krizia Sandoval said in a statement on Thursday.
The government recommended Prof Boehringer, who is originally from the United States, be blacklisted based on reports he participated in a rally in November 2015 in violation of an order "prohibiting foreigners from engaging in political activities in the Philippines".
Professor Boehringer says he's being held on "a trumped up charge". Source: SBS News
The former Macquarie University Law School Dean will likely be deported although Ms Sandoval noted if he submits sufficient proof to reverse the blacklist "it may be lifted accordingly".
Human rights group Action for Peace and Development in the Philippines, of which Prof Boehringer is a member, said it condemned his detention and threatened deportation.
Chairman Peter Brock, who has known the law professor for eight years, said he was a "champion" for human rights, justice and accountability and "certainly not radical".
He said Prof Boehringer was aware there was a risk of going back to the Philippines after Australian nun Sister Patricia Fox was earlier this year ordered to be deported for her involvement in human rights' protests.
"It's not interference in another country to raise concerns about human rights violations," Mr Brock told AAP on Thursday.
"You shouldn't stay silent when things are happening in other countries."
His lawyer, Maria Sol Taule, says the 84-year-old, who is married to a Filipino woman, is a "little tired" but still friendly despite being detained.
She is negotiating with the bureau to allow him to stay in Manila because he is "medically unfit" to travel.
"He should be afforded due process to answer the allegations against him," Ms Sol Taule told AAP on Thursday.
"Prof Boehringer is active in his human rights advocacies and solidarity with the Filipino people."
Geneve Rivera-Reyes from advocacy group Health Action for Human Rights examined Prof Boehringer while he was in detention and said it was "not safe" for him to travel again without medical clearance.
Dr Rivera-Reyes says he is suffering from deep vein thrombosis and cellulitis on both legs.
"The Bureau of Immigration is being heartless in pursuing the deportation of Prof Gill Boehringer," Dr Rivera-Reyes said on Facebook on Thursday.
The NSW man told Reuters he joined a fact-finding mission about indigenous people in Mindanao this year and the immigration bureau's accusation he joined protests was "trumped up".
"This is part of the government's campaign to keep foreigners away from what they're doing ... the injustices, the killings, the disappearances," he said.
Australia's foreign affairs department on Thursday said it was providing consular assistance to an Australian man in the Philippines.
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