Was talking to a close friend of mine yesterday.... who has lived here for 8 years on a tourist visa when it came time to leave the Philipphines and then return for renewal... he was asked at customs for his forwarding ticket back out...he showed them the ticket,,,But...they told him it was not good because it was not back to the original country he came from.(In his case the ..... U S)........He stated to them he did not know anything about this?? They said it was a rule (how new or old I do not know)..He went to the supervisors office and explained about he never knew or ever heard anything about this......They finally let him in but said for this 1 time only..(never anything said about money )...this was about 1 1/2 years ago... I made my trip in July 2014 and had a forwarding throw away ticket and never had any problems...But with his experience I am kind of shocked by what they did and told him here at the airport custom entry ... I am from the U S and and a forwarding ticket back home there is very costly...I was wondering has anybody made the exit trip of late and ran into any problems such as this ????
I think I read somewhere recently that immigration is getting tough with tourist visas and their extensions. I have also heard or read that they have or will stop people on tourist visas opening bank accounts here. Has anybody else had any experience of this, or is it just rumour.
I just opened up an account with my tourist visa at main branch of Metrobank they wanted a lot of info and things notarized but they did it took a week's long work ....... but i am concerned over what happened to my friend as a $1100.00 ticket will put a big dent in anybody's savings especially if your on a pension dependency
I came here this January with a onward ticket to Hong Kong (which I used), and again in March with an onward ticket to Singapore (which I bought on expedia at the Hong Kong airport and canceled for full refund in Manila after clearing customs). No problems at all either time.
I'm doubting things are what they seem. What matters in this case is based on ASEAN agreements which state a forward ticket is all that is needed to another destination. Expecting it to be a return to home country ticket would NOT go over well with the ASEAN agreements because the real purpose is those countries sharing the tourists between themselves for extra along with many tourists flip between many different Asian countries on sort of a Asia tour and this would really damage the tourism industry with the Philippines as a stop. I'm thinking it was a seriously overly zealous immigration officer or one trying to suggest a bribe to help pad his own pocket. There are a lot of zealous immigration officers who don't follow official policies or laws to push what they personally think and some of those officials in immigration put forth illegal policies as well. One of such is when they refuse to let a Filipina travel abroad because they cite the chance of abuse or other bad things. Its not in their legal power when someone has a passport and a ticket to stop them because what nonsense they fear may happen.
Not a big problem as the airline that let you board has the responsibility to make sure you have a onward ticket. As soon as immigration contacts the airline to take you out the airline will inform immigration that you are legal with your onward ticket. If you get bored you could always try to call a muck raking journalist and interest them in the story of a tourist being improperly detained. Collapse a couple of times, people are suckers for drama.
