The Philippines announces it will reopen to tourists 'soon' I have 1 year left on my visa. Hopefully "soon" isn't in Filipino time.
Same here, really hope they open soon. Too bad you and me are not from Togo and Mali. Actually too bad for the Philippines as well. I don't think they will get more than 10 tourists from those two countries combined in a year. Anyway, I'm wondering what IATF is scared of letting vaccinated tourists with a negative PCR test departure/arrival into the Philippines. Maybe they wait until every single Peso of the Corona fund is gone. Hopefully to the right people.......hmm hmm Gesendet von meinem M2101K6G mit Tapatalk
Just spoke to an American 2 days back and he said BOI told him there is a NEW RULE. He can't exit to a nearby Country, wait 24 hours and return. He was told he must go back to his Home Country and obtain Visa there! Hope this is not the case. Any update here in this thread would be appreciated.
This makes sense if he has a tourist visa. There are two distinctly different issues. 1) Covid quarantine requirements. At the time being this is broken down into color coded countries. Green, Yellow, Red. 2) Visa requirements. At this time there is no visa upon arrival. Travelers have to get their visa in advance. (This must be the issue that your American friend is having.)
Yes....as he is not Married, does appear he has to go back all the way to USA. He is researching online Visa options and also looking into the Embassy of his home Country at any possibility of getting a Visa issued. Anyone overly concerned at this time can read at link below to insure where one may be standing as far as situation. https://tokyo.philembassy.net/01ann...philippines-while-under-community-quarantine/
If you are planning on being home-ported in the Philippines for the rest of your life, I can see no advantage to not doing the SRRV. Doing a real cost-benefit analysis has all the savings from the NO side out-weighed by all the hassles and problems of the YES, like the ones above, that may occur now and in the future. Maybe you prefer it, seems like a no-brainer to me, only took me three months, renewals by email. Do have to admit that my military service nowhere near the Philippines saved me 85% on the deposit, but you can use that to buy a condo...
Afaik (but things like this can change quickly) there are hardly any nearby countries that accept travelers from the Philippines anyway. Only 2 exceptions I found (but about two weeks ago) are Indonesia (Bali only) and Thailand which was in the process of changing their rules for tourists. Even those two still have a bunch of requirements (testing and quarantaine). As for getting a tourist visa, it seems the information is correct that one needs to apply in his "home" country. This is from the official website of the BoI
PDIC only covers deposits of P500k. If your bank goes under (and they do all the time here, I've posted a list of banks that went bankrupt here before. It is upwards of 10 banks per year) you are out your money and visa unless you deposit all the money you lost, minis the P500k. It has happened before, it will happen again. Add a global pandemic and closed borders and banks going t*ts up is going to be even more likely. Buying condos has its own pitfalls and it makes your assets extremely non-liquid.
Here is the current list of bank failures. They are all tiny rural banks. 26 since May 2021. This is of no consequence because they are all so small. http://www.pdic.gov.ph/rl_ntcclosedbanks-1 Do you have any references of a medium to large bank failing?
I went through the list a while back ago. I recall some medium and large bank closures in the past. They don't fail nearly as often as the small banks but they do fail and there have been foreigners who have lost their visa due to bank closures. And again, global pandemic, the country is closed to tourists, OFWs can't find work/can't travel, the Philippine stock exchange is struggling, inflation is up, peso is struggling, small businesses failing left and right, leadership slow to open things back up, complete cluster f*ck dealing with the pandemic, slow vaccine rollout. Not a good time to be throwing money at Filipino financial institutions, they are almost certainly feeling the pinch. I'd be curious to see their cash flow.