Chris begs to leave Philippines

Grammy-winning hip-hop singer, Chris Brown went on his knees on Friday begging to be allowed to leave the Philippines and resume his world tour.

He was held back from leaving the country since Wednesday by authorities in that country after an influential sect filed a fraud complaint, saying it is owed a million-dollar-plus refund after the 26-year-old skipped a concert last year.

“Please, please, let us leave, please,” Brown said in a video posted on his official Instagram account, showing him on his knees inside what appeared to be his hotel room. The post was later taken down.

He ended the plea with his signature backflip.

He also appeared to send a thinly veiled distress signal to US President Barack Obama as he captioned the post: “OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!”

In two subsequent Twitter posts Brown said: “This is a very serious situation and someone needs to be held accountable for mixing my name up in all this. I’ve done nothing wrong!!!”

He added: “I have nothing to do with anything going on right now. I came back to Manila to do a make-up show for New Years. I did the show three days ago.”

Brown performed to a packed crowd at a Manila arena on Tuesday.

The sect is a minority in the Philippines — where 80 percent of its 100 million people are Catholics — but wields considerable political clout. It has between two and three million members according to media and votes as a bloc during elections.

“He has to coordinate with the Bureau of Immigration because (it) has the authority to either grant or deny the emigration clearance certificate,” Justice Secretary Leila de Lima told reporters Friday.

Immigration spokeswoman Elaine Tan told AFP Friday that Brown had not yet applied for such a document.

Brown’s Twitter posts were re-tweeted close to 2,000 times just minutes after the hip hop star uploaded them.

Read also: Chris Brown confined to Philippines

He has more than 14 million followers on the micro-blogging site, and 12 million on the photo-sharing platform Instagram.

A playful, bewildered Brown posted a foul-mouthed rant on his Instagram on Thursday as he break-danced apparently to make light of his predicament.

But his tone was more serious on Friday as the upcoming stops of his world tour drew nearer.

Brown is scheduled to perform in Israel and Cyprus next week before returning to the US for more concert dates, according to his website.

Asked about Brown’s case, US embassy spokesman Kurt Hoyer told AFP on Friday: “The embassy assists its citizens who are in need.”

The Brown saga was the latest case of Western entertainers riling Filipino groups and politicians.

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