ABOUT 30 percent of the international arrivals at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) on Thursday, February 10, 2022 were foreign nationals.
This was disclosed Friday by Edilyth Maribojoc, junior manager of corporate affairs of GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp., which operates the MCIA.
Maribojoc said they expect the number of arriving foreign nationals to increase in the coming days although she could not give the data on how many are scheduled to arrive at the airport.
“We're hoping (for an) increase in foreign nationals arriving in the coming days with the reopening of our borders to fully vaccinated foreign nationals,” she told SunStar Cebu.
Acting presidential spokesperson Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles earlier announced that fully vaccinated foreigners from non-visa required countries may enter the Philippines either for business or tourism purposes starting Feb. 10.
These foreign nationals, however, must present a passport valid for at least six months, return or outbound ticket to their country of origin, and their proof of vaccination permitted by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Apart from that, they need to present a negative RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) test taken within 48 hours prior to departure from the country of origin.
But once they arrive in the Philippines, foreign nationals will only do self-monitoring for any signs or symptoms of Covid-19 for seven days instead of undergoing facility-based quarantine.