Trying to escape from the Philippines during COVID-19

Why escape?

The title of this post may sound weird at first sight: why would you want to or have to escape from the Philippines, and why would it be so difficult – once you say you are trying to do that. There are several reasons. But none of these are related to Filipinos themselves: they were wonderful, nice, smiling and helpful, and I loved every moment I spent with them in their country.

In fact, every single Filipino that I met during my 7 months there was extremely nice, from shop assistants to immigration officers, from my landlady to the delivery guys, from the policewoman who arranged my travel pass to the random person in the street. (Oh I know very well, that there are terrible people everywhere, including the Philippines, I just didn’t meet any of them.)

So what were the reasons for escaping, then?

Of course, there’s the COVID-19 pandemic, which made both international and domestic travel first completely impossible, and then very difficult and/or expensive.

Then, I have spent more than four months under strict quarantine in Cebu, and I was starting to have enough of this wartime feeling. Soldiers and checkpoints everywhere and staying indoors all the time is too much for four months, and it was obviously not going to change for a long time.

Furthermore, the number of new infections in the Philippines has tripled and even quadrupled lately, and I believe there are many more cases of infections than what the official data show, and this makes it very dangerous in a country with not very developed health care provisions.

Third (or maybe in the first place), because arranging everything that is necessary just to leave the country or even the city, is not only difficult, but there is no way you can find out the rules, and it takes time and a lot of patience.

So what are the things you need to go through to be able to “escape”? Bear in mind, that everything below may not be exactly the same tomorrow, or even later today, or even at this very moment, should you meet different people at different offices. But it gives you a good idea of what to expect.

Step 1: find a flight

This was tricky. There were options even in the worst phases of the lockdown, but the prices were ridiculous (over 3k euros at least). If you find a less expensive option, which is still not cheap of course, the next thing you must make sure is that you are allowed to board the flights. There are no direct flights from the Philippines to Europe, so you must check if you are allowed to transfer at the transfer stop.

I have examined a million different options, most of which turned out to be unusable in the end because of some kind of restrictions.

After an extensive research, I was hoping to use Turkish Airlines, which offered very reasonable prices, but I didn’t want to buy the ticket too early, because you never know when they change or cancel flights, and your money is gone (hopefully not completely lost, but you can’t use it for a long time, and Turkish already owes me money in refunds). But then Turkish soon increased their prices considerably, so I ended up buying a Qatar Airways ticket from Manila to Budapest via Doha, for 700 US dollars.

I bought the ticket one week before the scheduled flight departure, and I was hoping to be able to arrange everything during this one week – or 5 days, because of the weekend.

Step 2: Get permission to leave Cebu city

2.1 Find a quarantine pass to be able to venture out into the street

Cebu city was under the strictest quarantine when I was trying to leave. It means that you could only leave your house with a quarantine pass, which was valid on 3 days of the week only, and it was shared with at least 5 other tenants. I grabbed the pass at night so that no-one should take it before me the next morning.

2.2 Don’t suppose the rules stay the same

I heard from an American guy who left the country about two weeks before, that you needed to visit two offices to get the permission to leave Cebu (or simply to get to the airport): 1) the barangay office (it is something like a district office), and 2) the city health department.

At the former, they certify that you are not on their list of quarantined people being monitored for COVID-19, and at the health office, they give you an official paper certifying this very same thing, plus the fact that you don’t show symptoms. They see this, when they look at you, I suppose, because they did no examination at all, they didn’t even ask me if I was feeling well.

The American guy said this is it, and then you are good to go.

But no, this was not true anymore.

2.3 At the barangay office

I went to the barangay office very early, at 8am, and they said the office opens at 9. Long story short: I had to wait several hours to get my barangay certificate.

At the barangay office, it also turned out, that you need to visit several further offices to get this permission to leave Cebu city. First, you go to the City Health department, for a health certificate. Then you also need to visit the City Hall, where they give you the actual pass, which they call a “Travel Authority”. And/or a particular police station too. Who knows… Or, the barangay staff said, you may also try the Quarantine office (yes, they also have such a thing now), where they may also give you the travel authority. Clear, isn’t it?

Some of the luckiest thing that happened to me was that at the first stop, the barangay hall, I met two other foreigners, who were accompanied by their local friends, so we decided to join forces, and do everything else together. Of course, things got complicated, and we got conflicting information just about everywhere and from everyone. Had I been alone, I think I would have given up sooner or later, and would’ve panicked a million times during the process. A big thank you to all of them, especially the two local girls.

I am not going into much detail here, because it is quite probable that things change, and the next time you will have to do it differently. But you may follow this order anyway.

2.4 The City Health Department

After the barangay office, we went to the city health department. Walking, of course, since almost all transport is banned, taxis are not available either. The Health department was quite quick, it took a little more than one hour. You need a printed copy of your travel itinerary all the way from Cebu out of the country. I had no booked flight from Cebu to Manila, only from Manila to Budapest. Luckily, the Health department lady had mercy on me, and gave me the certificate anyway – saying that is is good only from Cebu to Manila only. But then, that’s all I need, I thought.

While the other guys were waiting for their certificate, I walked to the nearby Quarantine office, where, according to the barangay guys, they may be able to give me the actual travel authority. They greeted me warmly, and said of course, they can give me a certificate, and said it would cost 300 pesos. It only became clear to me at the end, that this certificate was no good for anything at all, it said I was “fit to fly”. Thank you. I told my companions that they shouldn’t buy this document, and they didn’t bother with it.

The next step should have been the City Hall, as per the barangay people’s directions. But meanwhile someone informed us, that the City Hall was closed for disinfection. Very good. So where will we get the Travel authority? It is Friday, and I am leaving on Monday morning… Perhaps we can try our luck at the police station, we concluded.

2.5 Police station after police station

We first went to a nearby police station, where the security guy said they don’t do anything like that there. Fine. Then we will go to the police station that the barangay people recommended. We did, but the guard there said they don’t do anything like that there, and that we should go… God only knows where, but the local girls knew it was a stupid idea.

It is already the afternoon, after 3pm. Maybe, just maybe, someone suggested, we could still try the City Hall, because no-one said for sure, that it was closed, people only heard something somewhere about it. So off we went, but on the way, we met some people who were just returning from the City Hall, and they said it was indeed closed.

Game over then. I will not be able to travel to Manila on Monday morning, the weekend is coming. So we started to walk home together. But then I remembered, the guys in my company said there were two police stations opposite each other, and we only tried one. So I suggested we should now try the other one, before we go home.

And that saved us the further hassles. Because that was the one where they immediately said yes, they do issue Travel authorities. They just need the printed copy of your flight tickets – which I didn’t have, but they said it was OK if I bring it with me tomorrow, when we all need to return anyway, to collect our travel authorities. Yes, on a Saturday. Phewwww!

So everything was good, on Saturday, I got my Travel authority, and I was ready to leave. Getting to the airport was also tricky, since there is absolutely no transport, either public or private. You have to arrange it with someone who has permission to drive not only in Cebu city, but between cities, since the airport is already in a different city (Lapu-Lapu), and you have to drive through a third city, Mandaue, to reach the airport.

I was lucky again with my new friends whom I met at the barangay office, and they arranged me a car that took me to the airport.

I booked accommodation near the airport, NomadsMNL guesthouse, which was an excellent choice. It was fairly priced, very near the airport, and they provided transfer to and from the airport. I could actually use their transfer service, the same driver and car, for my two trips to the immigration office in Manila.

Step 3: Get permission to leave the Philippines

Because I have spent more than 6 months in the Philippines, I can’t just walk out of the country as I wish, even if I have my visa extension, which is still valid for more than 3 months after my departure date.

The Philippines makes it easy to stay in the country for a long time (up to three years) at one go, extending your visa several times. But they also make it difficult to leave. First, you need to apply for some kind of an “alien card” called an ACR-I card, and when you leave, you need to get a so called “emigration clearance certificate”. I had neither.

3.1 The ACR-I card

I applied and paid for the ACR-I card back in February, but when I wanted to collect it, they said it was not ready, and that I shouldn’t expect it to be ready well after the quarantine. Luckily, it as announced by the Immigration office some time in March, that foreigners may leave with only the receipt showing that they paid for the card.

So I was happy with it. Until about four days before my planned departure. Because then, the Immigration Office announced on their Facebook page, that foreigners now need to get an ACR-I card “waiver certificate”, if their actual card is still pending.

Oh, my! Just why do they do this to me? I wrote to the Philippine Immigration on their FB page and in an email too, but they didn’t give me a clear answer. However, some random commenters on Immigration’s FB page said a “normal tourist” will not need it, and that the receipt will still be enough. But what if you still need it? You can’t say to the immigration officer at the airport, who is asking for this waiver thing, that “but listen, a Facebook commenter said…”

3.2 The Emigration Clearance Certificate (ECC)

The other thing to arrange is this thing called an ECC, which as I understand, is a certificate that says you are not a criminal and that you don’t owe anything to the Philippines – worded nicely and in a different way.

In normal times, you should arrange it at any of the major immigration offices, but this time, they announced in an official statement, that foreigners can arrange it at the airport when leaving. But where at the airport? My embassy said at the Immigration office there, which, according to the Google Maps reviews, is one of the most terrible places on earth, with staff that are unwilling to help you, who are rude to everyone (this sounded weird to me, Filipinos are not normally like this), and where you need to wait a very long time.

So I decided to go to another office in Manila, the Makati office, which got very good reviews on Google Maps.

And it proved to be true: all the staff members were very nice, polite and helpful – just the thing I was used to in the Philippines. There was one problem though: they said to me issuing the ECC normally takes one week. But the supervisor, whom I had to talk to separately, said they can do it for me in two days time, and I can get it just in time, on the day of my flight, in the morning. Which I did. It cost me 500 pesos, plus of course the price of the expensive return transport twice, which amounted to 1600 pesos – so 2100 for the whole process. But by this time, I was already so exhausted, that I would’ve paid even more just to be sure that everything will be fine, and I can finally leave.

I did leave, and at the airport passport control, they didn’t ask me anything, they took my travel authority, and wished me a good journey. No ACR-I card was necessary. They saw the receipt though, which I gave them without them asking for it first.

Then I spent several hours in an almost empty terminal 3, which is normally the busiest terminal of the busiest airport of the Philippines.

With no smoking areas. 😓😢😭