Cebu Pacific said Thursday 19 domestic destinations in its network were open for leisure travelers and no longer require swab tests for fully vaccinated individuals.
Destinations include Bohol, Boracay, Butuan, Camiguin, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu (Cebu City and Mandaue City), Clark, Maguindanao Province, Davao, Dumaguete, General Santos, Iloilo, Legazpi, Manila, Naga, Ozamiz, San Jose, Tacloban, and Tuguegarao.
Other requirements may include vaccination certificate, vaccination card, government-issued ID, travel permits from S-Pass, confirmed accommodations, and registration to specific contact tracing applications.
Butuan and Cagayan de Oro require fully vaccinated travelers to simply upload their vaccination status via S-Pass.
Fully vaccinated passengers arriving at Legazpi airport must report to their LGUs for symptoms screening and profiling. The Traze app must also be downloaded.
Clark requires travelers to present a valid ID and any travel document required by the local government unit (LGU).
Cebu Province, Lapu-Lapu City, and Davao do not require arriving fully vaccinated guests to present any travel documents for entry.
A person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose in a two-dose series, or after receiving a single-dose vaccine.
“This is a welcome development, and we appreciate the various LGUs’ efforts to further ease travel for everyJuan, especially for fully vaccinated individuals. This will jumpstart the return of tourists and pave the way for the recovery of the local tourism industry, which we are also ready to support with a ramp-up in flight frequencies as needed,” said Xander Lao, Chief Commercial Officer at Cebu Pacific.
As the situation remains fluid, travel guidelines may change.
In related developments, a congressional leader recommended that Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. seek a formal explanation from the US Embassy on the State Department’s “Do Not Travel” recommendation to US citizens bound for the Philippines.
The advisory was released due to “a very high level of COVID-19 in the country” and “due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, and kidnapping.”
House Ways and Means chairman Rep. Joey Salceda of Albay, who also serves as co-chair of the House Economic Stimulus and Recovery Cluster, wrote Locsin to “recommend that your office summon the US Ambassador, or at the very least request a formal and official explanation.”
“In terms of COVID-19 risks, the Philippines is statistically safer than the United States. I note that there are six times more deaths per million in the United States due to COVID-19 than there are in the Philippines (2,633.47 versus 495.01 throughout the pandemic), and over the past week, there have been only 4.73 deaths per million in the Philippines due to COVID-19, versus 40.63 deaths per million in the US
over the same period,” Salceda wrote.
“In other words, one is significantly more likely to die in the US due to COVID-19 than one is in the Philippines. In fact, more Filipino healthcare workers died in the United States due to COVID-19, than in the Philippines,” Salceda added.
