MANILA, Philippines — (Update 2 3:19 p.m.) Malacañang on Friday said it would not be extending the travel ban on 36 countries intended to keep out new variants of the coronavirus.
Travel restrictions will be lifted on February 1, presidential spokesman Harry Roque confirmed to CNN Philippines and the Manila Bulletin, despite at least 17 cases of the more transmissible coronavirus variant that emerged from the United Kingdom in the country.
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The announcement was made on the same day that new guidelines for arriving foreigners were released.
President Rodrigo Duterte generally approves policy decisions by the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, but has, on occasion reversed their recommendations.
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The coronavirus task force on Thursday night finalized the conditions that must be met by foreign nationals allowed to travel to the country starting February 1.
Last week, the task force lifted travel restrictions on foreign nationals with valid visas, such as personnel of accredited international organizations, and spouses and minor children of Filipino citizens traveling with them.
Requirements for arriving foreigners
Roque, in a statement released earlier Friday, said the following requirements must be met by foreign nationals traveling to the country:
- They must have valid and existing visas at the time of entry, except for those qualified under the Balikbayan program under Republic Act No. 6768 or the Act Instituting the Balikbayan Program.
- They must be pre-booked for a minimum of seven nights at a quarantine hotel or facility.
- They must undergo COVID-19 testing at the quarantine hotel or facility on the sixth day from the date of their arrival.
- Their entry will be subject to the maximum capacity of inbound passengers at the port and the date of entry.
"The Bureau of Immigration has been directed to formulate the necessary guidelines in this regard," Roque also said.
Decision to lift travel restrictions stumps expert
Dr. Tony Leachon, a health reform advocate and former adviser to the IATF, on Friday questioned the decision to allow foreign travelers back into the country.
"I think it's counterintuitive again and quite confusing, considering the threat of the new variants, the United Kingdom variant, B117, and then you also have the threat of the South African [variant] and the new variant [from] Brazil," he told ANC's "Dateline."
"The other thing which I don't understand is the loosening of the border control for other countries where you can actually have the variants [but] the IATF declared GCQ in the National Capital Region, the Cordillera Autonomous Region, Davao, Batangas, [and] Tacloban," he added. "[This] means you're not... out of the woods at this point in time [but] you're loosening the border control for countries in which these particular variants are coming from."
READ: Metro Manila stays under GCQ in February
Recognizing that the sorry state of the economy may be driving the task force's decision to open borders, Leachon urged officials to exercise more patience. "We want to increase tourism but we're doing this at the risk of increasing our COVID-19 cases," he said.
The doctor also urged the government to be ready to reimpose the travel ban if cases surge again. "This has to be monitored on a weekly basis."
— Bella Perez-Rubio with reports from Gaea Katreena Cabico, Xave Gregorio and The STAR