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Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte is calling on government to get rid of its tedious eTravel requirement for incoming international travellers despite the rise in local Covid-19 infections late last month.

Villafuerte's main reason for asking this is to entice more tourists and prospective investors to come to the Philippines.

But what about the rise in Covid-19 cases? The former deputy speaker noted that it hasn't been enough to make health authorities sound the alarm.

“Despite an uptick lately in cases of the new Covid-19 variant, health officials do not seem worried enough about a potentially alarming surge as to recommend the return of the masking mandate,” said Villafuerte, majority leader of the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA).

“Hence, I believe a logical step further for Malacañang’s policy of increasingly relaxing anti-Covid health protocols and reopening our economy to global business and travel is the ditching of the eTravel document as a border entry prerequisite for international travellers," he said.

The Department of Health (DOH) reported that daily average coronavirus infections spiked by 42 percent to 637. It also said the number of cases totaled 4,456 over the April 24 to 30 period.

“If countries like the US (United States) and Canada, which had similarly experienced Covid outbreak surges like the Philippines in the past, and which both have a far greater volume of inbound travellers than us, can lift  their last remaining pandemic travel restrictions, why can’t we?” asked Villafuerte.

The Bicolano described the e-travel document as the last remaining vestige of the stringent health protocols that were enforced across the globe at the height of the pandemic.

"A lot more people can be enticed to go to the Philippines, whether for pleasure or business, if we were to get rid of the eTravel document that is so tedious and time-consuming for inbound passengers to accomplish prior to their actual arrival here," he said.

The eTravel earlier replaced the One Health Pass and e-Arrival Card as a travel requirement for incoming international passengers as part of the government’s health protocols to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

“However, eTravel has not delivered smooth passage as promised, and incoming passengers now have to go through the same arduous task of filling up this supposedly better travel document as what had been experienced and griped about by air travellers with the ditched One Health Pass and e-Arrival Card,” Villafuerte said.

Under the eTravel setup, inbound travellers are to register on its official website https://etravel.gov.ph within 72 hours prior to their actual flights to the Philippines.

They are mandated to present proof of their valid eTravel registration—either through printed copies or screenshots on their smartphones—prior to flight boarding at airports.