Business trip to the Philippines feeling full of anxiety (Part 1)

Greetings. This is Tachibana of UNIADEX, Ltd.

 

UNIADEX, Ltd. had recently established a joint venture company named [3Q DASH TECHNOLOX, INC.] ("3Q DASH" hereafter) together with Dai Nippon Printing, Co., Ltd. and Global Mobility Service, Inc.

 

To support this new establishment of 3Q DASH, I made a business trip to the Philippines from the end of March to mid-April. I would like to show you how the trip was in two articles.

 

The Philippines government is mandating some rules on the entry to the country as a part of the measures against COVID-19. Information on this article is as of March 31st, 2022. For the latest information, please refer to Embassy of Japan in the Philippines website or other appropriate websites.

Many countries are mandating to acquire a (negative) result of the testing certification for COVID-19 within 72 hours of the departure to enter their countries. However, the Philippines requires a certification within 48 hours.

 

I had a hard time finding a near-by medical institution which were able to provide a certificate within one day of a PCR testing. I even had to adjust my departure to Manila to make it on Thursday considering the clinic's day off. While the testing cost varies according to the medical institutions, I paid 25,000 JPY + 2,500 JPY for the certification.

 

I had to make a visit to the clinic twice for the testing and to receive the test result certification. Instead of using the clinic's certification template, I also had to download the a specific template from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan website & had it filled out by the clinic.

 

FYI, starting June 1st, 2022, the government of Philippines loosened the entry requirements and the test result certification is no longer required.

I was exempt from the requirement of self-quarantine after entering the Philippines for having at least one specified vaccination. My municipal I was living in took too long to issue a certification of vaccination in English before my departure, so I used the [COVID-19 vaccination certificate applet] issued by the Digital Agency of Japan.

 

However, please be aware that your My Number Card has to be read by a smartphone, meaning that you must have a smartphone with NFC Type B function to use this applet. Refer to the Digital Agency's website for further information.

To cover for the cost of COVID-19 infection treatment, I had to have a minimum of $35,000 coverage travel insurance. This is highly more expensive than the standard overseas travel insurances. In addition, insurance coverage certification in English had to be issued by the insurance company.

 

I inquired several insurance companies offering the overseas travel coverage; however, I had a hard time finding a company meeting all the requirements. I purchased an overseas travel insurance from Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd., because I was satisfied with the ways the call center agent answered my questions. It made me re-realize the importance of our company philosophy "customer success". If I would have a chance to go to the Philippines again, I would use Tokio Marine& Nichido's service again.

 

FYI, the insurance cost I paid was 15,000 JPY for the 15 days travel.

To clear the custom to the Philippines, I had to be registered to "One Health Pass".

 

Once I had the testing, vaccination, and the travel insurance certifications, they had to be registered to One Health Pass which is a website made for the foreign visitors to the Philippines.

 

One can register at the site 3 days in advance of the departure. However, since the test result certification has to be uploaded, you can technically only make a registration after having the certificate.

 

So, I tried making a registration to One Health Pass a day before my departure. I must say, it was quite a challenge. I first clicked on several screens and the "Travel Details" screen was shown. However, the arrival information column did not get displayed. My company network security system obviously was blocking the display.

So, I changed the network environment & the arrival information columns finally appeared, but I was soon challenged with another issue...

 

"Residence Details" were now to be entered in the "One Health Pass Registration Platform" screen. Since I was staying at a hotel in Makati which is located Southeast of Manila, I entered the name of the hotel, "NCR, Fourth District" under the "Province" column, and "City of Makati" under the "Municipality/City" column. Then, there was a column which said "Barangay", but I had no idea what Barangay was.

 

It looked like a municipal or a community name & the people living in the Philippines would have known what it was, but I had no idea what to pick for. So, I had to ask a DNP's business traveler who had already arrived there for the same project to find out which Barangay the hotel belonged to.

I suggest you to go to the airport early. At Tokyo Narita Airport, there was an extra check-point before reaching the check-in counter of Japan Airlines to confirm that I had all the requirements mandated by the Philippines government including One Health Pass, test result certification, travel insurance and such. Because of this, my check-in took a quite a long time.

 

I saw some passengers of the same flight not having the One Health Pass registrations, so I even helped them to register.

The flight to Manila had many empty seats. It was like there was only one person per row.

 

The quality of the inflight service was the same as before the pandemic. There were plenty of videos being offered for the entertainment; however, it was unfortunate that the number of games decreased.

 

I finally got onboard to the flight to Mania. Do you think I'd be able to enter the Philippines without any problems???

 

(to be continued to Part 2)