By Christine Fabro
All travelers, except returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs) via repatriation programs and special commercial flights, from nine countries are prohibited from entering the Philippines from Sept. 12 to Sept. 18.
These include Azerbaijan, Guadeloupe, Guam, Israel, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Saint Lucia, and Switzerland.
President Rodrigo Duterte has approved the said imposition of travel restrictions on countries under the Red List on Sept. 10.
On Monday’s (Sept. 13) public briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that under the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) Resolution No. 136-D, all passengers from or who have been to the Red List countries are prohibited from entering the country within 14 days immediately preceding arrival in the Philippines.
This will take effect from Sept. 12 at 12:00 p.m. to Sept. 18 at 11:59 p.m.
All ROFs via a government-initiated repatriation, non-government-initiated repatriation, and Bayanihan flights are exempted, as well as those foreign passengers “who merely transited through any of the mentioned countries.”
RT-PCR testing shall be conducted on the seventh day with the day of arrival as Day 1. Arriving passengers shall complete a 10-day facility-based quarantine, notwithstanding a negative test result.
Meanwhile, Green List countries/territories include American Samoa, Anguilla, Australia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Chad, China, Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Falkland Islands (Malvinas), Gabon, and Grenada.
Also included in the Green List are Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China), Hungary, Mali, Federated States of Micronesia, Montserrat, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niger, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Poland, Saba, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Sierra Leone, Sint Eustatius, Slovakia, and Taiwan.
Green List countries will be allowed a shorter seven-day facility-based quarantine upon arrival here.
List of classifications for countries, jurisdictions, or territories is based on their respective incidence rates and case counts as primary criteria, and testing data as secondary criteria. The incidence rate is the cumulative new cases over the past 28 days per 100,000 population while case counts are cumulative new cases over the past 28 days. –rir
