Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Filipino nurse Ello Ed Mundsel Bello was sentenced by the State Courts of Singapore to four months in jail after being found guilty on Monday (September 21) for one count of sedition for promoting feelings of ill-will and hostility and for two counts of declaration of false information to a public servant.
Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesperson Charles Jose on Monday said that Bello’s penalty was appropriate for the gravity of charges. He added that Bello has accepted the verdict of the court.
Under Singapore’s Sedition Act, anyone found guilty of promoting feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races of the population of Singapore will be fined up to $5,000 or sentenced to five years in prison — or both.
In January, the 28-year-old Bello posted a status on his Facebook account describing Singaporeans as “loosers [sic] in their own country,” then allegedly told authorities that his account was hacked and so it wasn’t he who posted the racist rants.
Related: Singapore charges Filipino nurse with sedition
Screenshots of his Facebook rants showed that he is allegedly “praying that disastors [sic] strike Singapore and more Singaporeans will die than [sic] I will celebrate.”
He then ended his FB post with the message: “REMEMBER PINOY BETTER AND STRONGER THAN STINKAPOREANS [sic].”
Bello was immediately dismissed from his job at the government-run Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore last January 9 following internal investigations into a series of Bello’s social media posts that were deemed offensive and detrimental to multi-cultural harmony in Singapore.
