50 comments

    1. @Marco Bernardini may you please clarify? Are.ypu saying even with out exception they will grant a visa.. even though there anouncment says we will be denied? What facts do you have? Do you know someone who has tried? I want to get back and I am keen on trying

    3. Technically even now is possible to travel and enter in Philippines. the Manila airport is still open and accepting foreigners. They will just ask you a medical certificate to show u are not infected from covid and maybe a 14 days quarantine. The real problem now is to depart from Europe Which is in lockdown and not allowing in this moment tourism trips and i guess america aswell since now is the first country in the world for the infected. We need at least to wait the lockdown in our countries is over and no more travel restrictions ( i guess if we are lucky the end of may or more probably june ).

    5. Wayne Mathews My advice is to call your airline. I have Philippine Airlines and they refunded all my cost for the plane ticket. There is no way quarantine or enhanced quarantine is going to be over my then. I and married and have lived in the Philippines for close to 5 years. My wife in Davao says they just bumped up to enhanced quarantine.. I am in America as I left 3 weeks before this went down so I am trapped here. I called and canceled because Philippine Airlines takes forever to refund you. I would wait till this fully calms down and there is no cases and the airports are working at full speed. My wife called the BI Chief which we always deal with and he said to stay in place in your country and if your there the Department of State recommendation is to leave now if your can unless you intend to stay indefinitely. Good luck.

  3. Seems a massive Krakatoa like cloud of disease is spreading across the entire globe with the winds and travelers. Makes one think of the 6th book of the Revelation in the Holy Bible and the Pale Horse bringing death. I just wish more doctors would talk about how and why they are treating hospitalized people and not just riding out the flu with them at home. I’m planning on deep self isolation for 3 months or so. It seems to be cleansing my inner spirit some how as I do things around the house and meditate on my tomorrows.

  8. I wonder if all this will make Western guys in PH more attractive or less, once borders are open again. The “More” argument says that current economic issues for PH people makes Westerners more attractive, but the “Less” argument says that maybe Western guys will be seen somehow as “disease carriers”, especially since parts of the US and Europe are getting hit badly by Corona.

  13. I don’t think the warmer weather kills this bug. Hot there,hot here in Fla. and death
    toll keeps rising. USA number one in testing, and death.

    1. @ASIAN ROMANCE In UK and The Nederlands the over all death rate for 2020 *is not* higher than in 2017, 2018 and 2019, at least not so far. It seems that the doctors are _Flogging a dead horse_ and are somewhat successful in doing so. Suggesting the same guys that dies in Corona would have checked-out anyway.

  15. in this moment is still possible enter Philippines from Europe or America with a tourist visa? I just know that people from my country ( Italy ) need to show a covid19 free medical certificate in order to enter Phils but i don’t know if Philippines are still accepting foreigners with a tourist visa. Anyway i will wait may or june hoping for the best

    1. @ASIAN ROMANCE the latest is talk of a travel bubble. Tourism officials are pushing for an opening. What the new requirements will be, I don’t know but Cambodia just announced and 3000 USD deposit with quarantine and swaps. We wait now for the other ASEAN country’s to make there new requirements

    2. Marco Bernardini, I am not up to date on the latest travel restrictions. It seems to change daily. I recommend doing a google search.
      I plan to travel in May or June.
      -Nils

    2. Roger Ritchie, life in Taiwan is normal and is one of the safest countries in the world, regarding the virus.
      The food is excellent(!) and a great place for ex-pats that want to escape the lockdowns in the Philippines, US or EU.
      -Nils

    1. Warren louisiana, thanks for asking.
      Taiwan is one of the safest countries in the world. They had zero new cases of the virus, yesterday!
      The food is great, but the social life is minimal.
      -Nils

  19. Nils, how reliable is the data when a person dies, how do they know it was the result of covid-19 and not some underlining condition the person had to begin with. I’m sure they don’t do an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death on everyone. What about the old saying “garbage in garbage out.”

  20. You are assuming that ‘official’ statistics are true and accurate. The reality is that this whole scenario was pre-planned over the past 2 decades by the psychopaths who run the world from the shadows. Tests are not even accurate and seniors with multiple health issues are listed as dying from the virus when it was a minor or even absent factor.

    Taiwan is a sexual desert for older foreign men nowadays. Wasn’t always like that but, on reflection, I think you would have done better to take a nice Filipina to a distant island and get locked down in relative paradise. Ending the lockdown has nothing to do with statistics: it depends on how antsy and aggressive the people become under house arrest … it’s a battle of wills ‘they’ hope to win but it’s really up to us.

    1. John O’neill, no news from the government yet. They still do not allow tourist visas into the Philippines.
      My guess is the Philippines will follow the lead of other Asian countries when they take the first step.
      -Nils

  24. Because of major pressure from possible bankrupt airlines and hotel industry, I predict we are going to see the opening of international travel between safe countries soon. (perhaps July and August 2020)

    It will probably be based on some sort of rating system (number of death per million people), where each country will be assigned a safety code, for example, “A” for the best (Taiwan, S. Korea, Hong Kong?) and “Z” for the worst (USA?)

    For other countries, I predict we will see different levels of strict and mild processing of tourists. It could be something like this:

    1) a strict 14-day mandatory government quarantine, at the expense of the traveler,
    2) a 3 days waiting period after an entry virus test, at the expense of the traveler, or
    3) immediate entry for a tourist who has a safe travel history to countries in the “A” zone, and is willing to provide contact tracing (via phone and address location) and can also do a basic health declaration.

    As far as I know, the Philippines does not have a computerized tourist entry card system, so PI may be slower to open the borders compared to Taiwan, S. Korea, and Japan which are much more high tech and ready to open borders.

    -Nils

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