A sour note

A first-time visitor here, as far as I can tell from his stories, has found out that it truly is fun in the Philippines.

The visitor, in his 20s, was here for over two months and visited destinations from north to south. In the final weeks his girlfriend joined him from their home country, one of the world’s most prosperous.

His first five weeks were spent on business in Metro Manila, but a visitor is always a tourist. So he walked around Intramuros and Chinatown in Manila, shopped in Makati, watched the Manila Bay sunset, rode the jeepney and enjoyed the nightlife.

He had a chance to visit Cotabato for a peek into the peace process.

As full-time tourists, he and his girlfriend went to Banawe and Bontoc for the rice terraces, and then to Sagada, where they saw some of the ancient tombs and went swimming in a cave.

Armed with a Lonely Planet traveler’s guide, the pair went to several of our top destinations, among them Boracay – great to visit off-season – and Bohol for the Chocolate Hills and endangered tarsier.

In Cebu they swam with whale sharks – first with one, and then two or three others followed. And I thought whale sharks visited Philippine waters only during summer. Apparently people in the southern Cebu coastal town of Oslob have learned to lure whale pods with food.

I have to admit it was the first time that I heard of Oslob, whose attractions, I now know, include not only whale watching but also Tumalog Falls, whose waters gently cascade like umbrellas to the pool at the bottom.

Also new to me was the five-day island-hopping cruise the pair took in Palawan, from Coron to Puerto Princesa and the Underground River. They rode in a boat like the one at the end of “The Bourne Legacy,” slept in tents on the beach, and then feasted on seafood bought directly from local fishermen.

On their final day the tour operator bought a pig from a village, which was slaughtered and roasted for about six hours. At past 10 p.m. when the skin was all crisp and the lechon ready, the squeals of the pig while being slaughtered had receded from the visitors’ memory and they enjoyed the feast.

That was the fun part.

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And now for the sour note:

The traveler apparently enjoyed his visit so much he overstayed by a week and had to pay for the extension.

That cost him a total of P7,854.50 at the Bureau of Immigration. The breakdown: adult ACR fee, P1,000; fine for a one-month extension, P500; application fee for a one-month extension, P300; extension fee, P500; head tax, P250; legal research fee, P60; motion for reconsideration, P500; ECC fee, P700; certificate fee, P500; and ACR I-card fee, P2,044.50.

That ACR ID card looks like our driver’s license. Why do tourists need it? To speed up the release of the card (so he wouldn’t have to endure another long wait at the crowded main immigration office in Manila), the visitor opted for the express lane. That cost him P500 for the “express lane fee certificate” and P1,000 as “express lane fee.”

Why do we like making life difficult for everyone? I believe the visitor found his stay here a positive experience overall. But if he’s planning a return visit to this part of the world, he may consider some of our neighbors to be better destinations, and it won’t be simply because of the lack of direct flights between Manila and his country.

We have terrific travel destinations. But apart from the need to improve our tourism marketing, we need to work on the many details that make traveling to the Philippines a pleasant, memorable experience.

That visitor and his girl, for example, booked a tour to the Underground River, thinking that the daylong trip would be spent mainly at the river. Instead on the way to the river, they were made to spend the whole morning in a side trip to a place where they climbed a limestone hill. They found this interesting but they were not informed beforehand about the side trip – they could have done something else in the city – and worse, they were made to pay extra for it at the site.

Having fun includes ease in travel procedures. Last week when I visited Malaysia, for example, I didn’t have to fill out immigration arrival or departure cards or a customs declaration. On arrival, they took my biometrics (fingerprints) and I breezed past immigration.

As in most other countries these days, there is no airport terminal fee at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Why can’t that fee be incorporated into airfare? It only adds to the queues at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Foreign tourists may find some comfort in the fact that even Filipino travelers grouse about being squeezed for every drop of cash by the government. Why are we taxed nearly P1,800 to fly out of the country? Whether for inbound or outbound travelers, we need to work on tourist-friendly policies.

For those visiting the country, the fun must start from arrival to departure, with each one getting value for money, and nothing to sour pleasant memories.