International travelers who have not been fully vaccinated or those coming from outside the "green list" countries may face a longer quarantine period upon arrival in the Philippines.
According to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), these travelers must undergo 14-day quarantine, where the first 10 days will be spent at a facility and the remaining four days will be at home.
These travelers will not be qualified for the "green lanes" that provide a shorter seven-day quarantine rule for fully vaccinated passengers upon arrival in the country, the task force said.
The latest government decision is part of the revised rules on testing and quarantine protocols for passengers arriving from abroad approved by the IATF during a meeting Thursday, July 22. The revised regulations will take effect on July 26.
Based on the IATF No. 128-A, international arriving passengers to the Philippines, regardless of point of entry, shall must undergo a 10-day facility-based quarantine and a four-day home quarantine, including an RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) test on the seventh day, if any of the following are present:
1. Their port of origin is not a Green List country/jurisdiction/territory;
2. They stayed outside a Green List country/jurisdiction/territory at any time in the last fourteen (14) days before their arrival in the Philippines;
3. They have not been fully vaccinated; or
4. Even if fully vaccinated, their vaccination status cannot be independently verified/confirmed by Philippine authorities as valid or authentic upon their arrival in the country.
The government earlier issued travel guidelines for travelers arriving from abroad as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus.
Fully vaccinated travelers coming from the "green" countries and territories face a shorter quarantine period of seven days at a facility, compared to the 10-day standard rule. These travelers take the swab test on the fifth day from arrival.
So far, the government has identified 57 countries and territories as "green" or classified as "low-risk" by the Department of Health. Among the green areas are Australia, Brunei, China, Israel, Hong Kong, Laos, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam.