eTravel registration to replace paper departure forms at Phl airports

From May 1, all departing passengers at Philippine airports will no longer be asked to fill in paper departure cards.

Instead, they will be asked to complete an online form through the eTravel portal, the same website used by arriving passengers in declaring their vaccination status and other personal details.

By to the Bureau of Immigration, outbound passengers will have to fill in the eTravel departure form not earlier than 72 hours to not later than three hours from the scheduled time of their flight.

Inbound passengers, on the other hand, are required to fill in the health declaration form on eTravel within 72 hours of their scheduled flight to the Philippines.

In a statement, Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco said, “This is a major step in streamlining documents presented by departing travelers, allowing for faster and more efficient immigration processing.”

An eTravel spokesperson said travelers may register at the portal starting April 15.

In Hong Kong and many other places abroad, departing passengers are no longer asked to go through immigration personnel. Instead,their passports and air tickets are scanned by machines, which also check their biometrics.

In the Philippines, all outbound passengers will still have to go through immigration officers who check their documents and are empowered to ask questions about their travel. But the paper departure card  will no longer be collected at the immigration posts by the cut-off date.

The Philippines’ paperless departure system is an initiative of a technical working group of the Inter-Agency Task Force, chaired by the Immigration Bureau.

It is a collaborative project with the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Department of Tourism, Bureau of Quarantine, Bureau of Customs, Department of Health, Department of Transportation, Department of Justice, and National Privacy Commission.

Source: The SUN HK : eTravel registration to replace paper departure forms at Phl airports (sunwebhk.com)