Passes to get anywhere in the Philippines

[Snowy79]

2 hours ago, RBM said:

Just read this today.....

PH receives over 9K inbound tourists since reopening: DOT  (Philippine News Agency) These are genuine tourists not BBs. Not to bad considering, perhaps if everyone followed the guidelines at time of departure travel would be smoother.

Friend of a close friend just arrived here from England, Manila Cebu. Never mentioned anything about hassles or issues.

I saw a breakdown of the so called foreign tourists and it wasn't impressive. The majority were Filipino dual citizens travelling on a foreign passport and only something like 457 were actual foreigners.  On Boracay they break down tourists from different areas and by nationality.  There was over 26k tourists as of two days ago since the 1st of Feb.  Seventeen were foreigners the majority American. 

[Freebie]

They had the S pass some time back ( or some other similar  app)... officially needed it to pass through Cebu airport. Took a trip and there was one cop, busy looking through cat and food pics on his phone and realised that they make requirements then do bugger all about enforcement. Creating the perception of control but not realising that control depends on exercising that control.

[Freebie]

1 hour ago, Clermont said:

People are still sorting themselves out and if they don't fix their system up they'll miss the boat and head to other countries and the PI's will still have the mess we have to try and navigate

Do have a look at the requirements for newly opened Bali... a whole lot more requirements and "mess".

Thailand changes rules every day. Cambodia seems easiest at moment. Myanmar rules are a mess and Vietnam only want to open parts of the country.

Philippines no better and certainly no worse than others.

[Huggybearman]

11 hours ago, GeoffH said:

 

My girlfriend was aware of the S-Pass but where she lives it is evidently not being checked or required to travel around, she assumed that because I was coming to CDO that I wouldn't need it either.  

We just returned to CDO today from Boracay. On checking in for the CebuPacific flight in Caticlan we were asked for the ‘S’ pass for CDO. My wife was under the misapprehension that an ‘S’ pass wasn’t needed as we live there. They wouldn’t let us check in without one so we had to fill out the application online there and then to get one.
Of course, when we arrived at Langandingan airport no one asked anyone for an ‘S’ pass!

[Jollygoodfellow]

18 hours ago, Clermont said:

I'm sure they do, I just can't believe that all this rigmaroll that they are going on with is going to make the country any safer. What is their purpose of all this, are they seeing who can come up with the most outlandish restriction to see who gets on top of the sh==t heap. Well I'll tell you a lot of foreigners have struck the PI's of their list of visits, Health insurance, travel passes, jacked up prices for food, taxi's, hotel rooms, don't they realize the country is a low budget holiday country and a lot of their tourist's are pensioners. Their nationals are jack of it too, ( I'd like to write in some captions but it's political ). Shame on you Bureaucrats that are running this country, the only running you's are doing is running it into the ground, shame. 

Not sure where your jacked up prices come from as prices are the same as usual here except for things that always go up and down like food.fuel .Accommodation, Airbnb, you can get cheaper short term rental than you did pre covid. Taxis have meters where I come from so same as usual. 

Now look at Australia, no restrictions and silly rules? Yes there was including lock downs, some states open and other closed.People stuck for months and could not get home.

Now look at many other countries, Thailand for one, health insurance required, was quarantine but I think no more. Pass required online to get into the country first.  Constantly changing rules like here. Liquor bans, pass to go to one area to another.

So I would not be too hard on the Philippines even though it cheeses me off sometimes with the changing rules but just got to go with the flow which is better for my health.

[Jollygoodfellow]

2 hours ago, Huggybearman said:

We just returned to CDO today from Boracay. On checking in for the CebuPacific flight in Caticlan we were asked for the ‘S’ pass for CDO. My wife was under the misapprehension that an ‘S’ pass wasn’t needed as we live there. They wouldn’t let us check in without one so we had to fill out the application online there and then to get one.
Of course, when we arrived at Langandingan airport no one asked anyone for an ‘S’ pass!

Could be an airline misinterpretation as it must be hard for them to keep up with it all.