I went to immigration office in Dumaguete to get a 2 month extension on my tourist visa and was very happy to find out the price dropped from PHP 2930 to PHP 1930. The express lane fee was dropped. I was in and out of the office in 10 minutes, pick up passport tomorrow. They have streamlined the paperwork, reduced the lines and lowered the price, things have really improved lately at our BI office. Take note LTO
Yes because they no Longer needed it to pay Staff, instead, they have cut the Hours from 7.30am to 5.30 pm to a straight 9 Hour Day 8am to 5 pm supposedly with no noon Break where they are all there, busy doing Nothing cos the In-Charge is out to lunch
In the past the BI used the express lane fee to pay staff overtime and other things. Duterte decided the express lane fee would go to the general government account and the BI could not keep the money. News paper story a couple of months ago said BI salaries droped from around 60K per month to 12-15K. A lot of campers were not happy and quit. I'm guessing there is a bit off passive/aggressive resistance going on here. In any event good for us
Tourist Visa Extensions now come in 1, 2, and 6 month flavors. Maximum stay before a tourist has to leave is 36 months. Mo minimum time to be gone before returning.
And here I was wondering where 'he' was going to find all the money from to fund all his new ideas, I thought for sure foreigners would be feeling the sting...
UPDATE: B.I. has imposed a 3-5 day passport return for any transaction requiring you to produce your passport. Example...When applying for your ECC it now has a 3-5 day passport return policy.
You sent my mind in 3 directions 1)So if you plan on leaving close to a year, best to stay under 12 months so the ECC can be accomplished at the Airport? 2)the policy is now 3-5 days, does this affect actual processing times (will they get longer)? or is it just the current 'policy'. There are rules and laws here, and there are how things are actually done, not necessarily the same and certainly not the same at different locations. 3)So, any transaction... we now have to live in the airport 3-5 days to enter and exit the country since producing our passport is the first and last things we do?????
