Britain clarifies travel advisory, says positive about Phl

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - Britain clarified today that its existing travel advisory on the Philippines does not discourage British citizens from visiting the country.

"Our advisory is positive about the Philippines," said Steph Lysaght, head of the political section of the British Embassy in Manila.

Lysaght said in a briefing that Britain's level of warning for the Philippines has not changed for the past several years. He is referring to the color-coded map of the Philippines alongside the travel advisory that can be found on the British Embassy in Manila 's website.

The map showed 80 percent of the Philippines are in "green", meaning safe for travel for British nationals. Some parts of Mindanao, home to a long-running Muslim insurgency and terror groups, are highlighted either in red or orange indicating high risk of security threat.

Lysaght said Britain updates advisory from time to time based on security threats, political developments and occurrence of natural disasters.

"When we update our travel advice, we don't always change the nature of the advice. We just try to make it more current," he said.

Thomas Phipps, embassy second secretary, said 95 percent of information that Britain uses for its travel advisory are open source information. The remaining 5 percent are based on intelligence-gathering and regular consultation and information sharing with Philippine security officials and allies like the United States, Australia and Japan.

Lysaght said British officials are in fact encouraging more British investors and tourists to come to the Philippines.

"We have a growing and thriving British community, not only those married to Filipinos but those choosing to retire here. All of these things were encouraging and they are growing very, very much and the travel advice says that," he said.

Around 130,000 British nationals visit the Philippines every year, according to the embassy website.