The government through the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases or IATF, announced last Friday that beginning this Tuesday, Feb. 1, fully vaccinated travelers arriving in the Philippines will no longer be required to undertake quarantine.
IATF Resolution No. 159 states that all they need to present is a negative RT-PCR test taken 48 hours before their flight and proof of COVID-19 vaccination such as a World Health Organization vaccination certificate or a VaxCertPH digital certificate. They would also need to self-monitor for COVID-19 symptoms for seven days and report this to the Local Government Unit of their destination. The resolution also temporarily suspends the classification of countries as “Green”, “Yellow,” and “Red” based on the prevalence of the virus in the country.
Many Filipinos based overseas were elated with this latest change in the country’s inbound travel policy. Previously, all inbound travelers needed to book a hotel room as a quarantine facility for at least five days. And after testing negative again on the fifth day, continue their quarantine at home to complete 14 days. Filipinos vacationing from work abroad, will basically spend their break cooped up in a room. So you can imagine how this new policy will now entice OFWs or balikbayans to consider traveling home.
The new measure is also applicable, starting Feb. 10, to foreigners who do not require a visa to enter the Philippines. So for fully vaccinated foreign tourists, this means they can spend their limited time in the country for business and tourism, fully doing what they intend to do. That is, if they continue to be COVID-free during their stay. And this is where the plan hits a snag.
The recent surge we experienced with the Omicron variant has shown that even if we are fully vaccinated, we can still catch COVID and experience the symptoms associated with it. Community transmission is so rampant, even Department of Health spokesperson, Undersecretary Dr. Maria Rosario Vergeire, sees the irony. “It doesn’t make sense anymore (to quarantine) because ‘yun pong transmission dito sa ating bansa ay napakataas na. Baka mas mataas pa dun sa pinagbabawalan nating travelers coming from other countries,” claims Dr. Vergeire.
Honestly, “It’s More Fun with COVID in the Philippines,” does not exactly ring our bells. I doubt the Department of Tourism will be promoting the country with this slogan either any time soon, “Philippines: Now Open for Business–If You Don’t Catch COVID From Your Flight, We Can Give It To You Here.”
Which begs the question, “Aren’t we rushing things again?”
While encouraging, the recent downward trend in the National Capital Region’s daily COVID numbers is still not at pre-Omicron levels. Back in December, the government brought down the NCR’s Alert Levels to support the economy. People went out to enjoy the holidays by shopping, visiting friends and relatives. Unfortunately, Omicron arrived and many of us experienced the realities of COVID-19, albeit in a milder way.
“I hardly had any sleep. I was coughing the whole time and my throat and chest hurt,” shares Landscape Architect Mona Dalit who caught the virus in early January. “You know that feeling when your chest is sinking? My pulse rate was so low on the oximeter that it was already blinking. It was an exhausting experience,” adds the fully vaccinated architect.
Though her symptoms were considered mild and she just stayed at home to ride off the effects of COVID-19, it is not something she would like to experience again even if it means returning back to the pre-COVID normal life. “Maybe if COVID-19 eventually becomes like the common cold and cough, maybe we can go back to normal. But now, I don’t think so.”
Many others continue to feel the lingering effects of COVID1-19 even days after getting a negative result from their RT-PCR and Antigen tests. So getting infected is not exactly something to look forward to.
What many of us are looking forward to however is being able to travel again. But even with this new IATF policy coming in, travel industry stalwarts are not convinced of its feasibility at this time.
“It’s still too early to conclude that the travel industry is back to normal,” claims Rose Naguit of Las Palmas Tours and Travel. “Pinoys are looking forward to traveling first to Asian countries like Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, etc. Once they open their borders then there is a chance for travel to kick off.”
But if these countries, with their new case numbers still at an active level–Hong Kong with 188, Japan with 78,736 and 16,085, all posted on Jan. 27, are still imposing 10- to 14-day quarantines for inbound travelers, what makes us so special to proceed with IATF Resolution No. 159? And even to claim this as part of the country’s so-called Endemic Exit Strategy?
“No for me. It’s still too early,” says Naguit. “I think the government should still continue to restrict our borders for incoming passengers. Until we see that there is no new variant, that’s the only time they can totally relax the quarantine measures,” she adds.
Maybe the IATF’s braintrust has predicted that there will be no variants of concern coming any time soon? Its Sub-Technical Working Group on Data Analytics is now calling the shots with the latest easing of inbound travel restrictions. A bold move considering how easily the virus seems to mutate.
“Ideally, the downward trend of new cases should be seen in the whole country. Right now it’s just the NCR,” says Dr. Rodrigo Ong, a University of the Philippines Lecturer and member of OCTA Research. “But I think it is also to capitalize on the 7 percent economic growth rate we recently posted,” he adds.
So it has come to this–the economy or our health. Learning to live with the COVID-19 virus has been a solution touted as early as the first year of the pandemic. As we have seen, despite the vaccinations, variants can still infect us and make us sick. Or worse, can be deadly.
Opening our borders to bring in much needed tourism money may be a little too soon, but it is an eventuality that needs to happen. As we slowly become mobile, let us just remember to take care of ourselves and our loved ones by being responsible and heeding to science. We can complain to the high heavens about this overeagerness to resume normality, but let us also remember it is our own overeagerness that is bringing these changes to the fore.
