Naia health counters pose ‘risks’

Lito Gagni

There is a need for the Department of Transportation (DOTR) to look into the activities of health counters at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) due to the “risks” involved in the way incoming travelers are accosted and asked for verification of their vaccination status. This is especially true for residents here who are coming back from their travels.

DOTR should make sure that personnel at the health counters do not harass residents returning from their travels with undue requirements on their vaccination status, especially now that President Marcos Jr. has already lifted the stringent rules on the vaccination status of incoming passengers. In fact, all other countries have similarly declared the opening of their borders.

We raise this point due to the experience that a lawyer-friend told us regarding a couple who went on a pleasure trip to Hong Kong . According to him, someone from the health desk accosted the wife of his friend while they were on their way to the immigration counter. Apparently, the wife, who was walking behind, had been asked for her vaccination status; and, finding out that she was not vaccinated, the staffer brought her to the health desk.

The lawyer recounted that the husband, finding his wife being escorted to the health desk , followed and then and there got the shock of his life on learning she was apparently being detained due to her unvaxxed status. He told the health desk personnel that they had gone through an antigen test before departure and were cleared. So there was no need for the hint at a detention.

His take was that the health center may pose an unnecessary risk to incoming travelers by way of having to come across so that they need not be detained. According to Rante, there is a big possibility that incoming travelers may be harassed to such a point that they come across, a risk that is usually associated with rules that have been stretched by overzealous personnel.

The health center is a superfluous requirement since the couple have gone through an antigen test and were declared fine so there was no need for the extra requirement from the health desk. Also, the couple, said my lawyer-friend, were waved through by the immigration counter. Which begets the question, why is there a need for the health center to impose rules that have already been clarified by President Marcos Jr.”

The President has already signed a resolution lifting the quarantine requirement for travelers entering the Philippines who are either unvaccinated, partially vaccinated, or whose vaccination status cannot be independently validated.

This was announced in a tweet, by Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Brigido Dulay, who confirmed that the President has signed the Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) Resolution No. 2 allowing inbound travelers sans quarantine.

“Filipinos and foreign nationals 15 years or older shall present a remotely supervised or a laboratory-based rapid antigen negative test result administered and certified by a healthcare professional in a healthcare facility, laboratory, clinic, pharmacy, or other similar establishments taken within 24 hours prior to the date and time of departure from the country of origin/first port of embarkation in a continuous travel to the Philippines, excluding lay-overs; provided, that, he/she has not left the airport premises or has not been admitted into another country during such lay-over,” the resolution read.

That resolution also said that predeparture testing for fully vaccinated inbound travelers will no longer be required. Also, unvaccinated residents travelling outside the country need only present a rapid antigen test and that’s it. There is no need for the health desk to accost returning residents since they have been cleared already.

For the lawyer’s friend, the health desk personnel at the airports should not be overzealous, especially when dealing with foreigners in accosting them and then bringing them to the health center where they are read the riot act, since it does not do the country good. The “laglag-bala” phenomenon that had travelers enveloping their luggages with a plastic wrap at the airports should not be allowed to rear its head.

The country has so much to gain from tourists visiting our destinations and no additional rules from a health desk at the airport should be allowed to ruin this. We have enough problems as it is, with the Naia—enough to turn off many prospective visitors. The last thing we need are people needlessly harassing travelers.