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Philippines Formalities
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webmaster.
Last modified on 2002-08-19 00:50:46
Visa for Philippines It is a requirement to acquire a visa going to the Philippines by yacht regardless of how many days you intend to stay in the Philippines. The following is the information supplied by the Consulate in Brisbane. 1) Passport must be valid for 6 months beyond intended stay 2) Enclosed visa appication form duly completed 3) One passport size photo signed at the back by the applicant 4) Photocopy of plane ticket or confirmed itinerary (not applicable) 5) Self addressed stamped envelope for return of visaed passport 6) A$41.25 bank draft or bank cheque for visa service charge if applicable For Australian passport holder, the fee for visa processing is $16.50 New Zealand passport holders obtain the visa for free. You must supply on a separate piece of paper:- Name of vessel; Radio call sign; Date of entry into the Philippines; Port of entry in the Philippines; Length of stay; Contact address; Intended itinerary* (we did do this and but were not asked for it). We obtained a 59-day visa from the Philippine Consulate General in Brisbane. The visa starts from THE DAY IT IS ISSUED i.e. you have to enter the Philippines before the expiry date and obtain extensions from there on. I believe that the official policy is that there are only immigration charges, which are listed in the immigration offices. Yachts are supposed to gain free entry for 1 year. However it seems that every official has Davao City Quarantine: The quarantine official arrived via the pilot boat. She very quickly filled in the paperwork and handed us our clearance (both in and out!). Just as she was leaving she turned and said, "There is a charge". US$50 - we did not have American dollars and she said 1200 pesos (which is not correct). We did not have that much and said we would bring the money to her once we had been to the bank. We had been told that there was no charge. So we ignored it until she came out again a few days later. We told her that our agent in Manila said he had checked with the officials there and there was no charge to pleasure yachts. She immediately backed off and left the boat. Immigration: We arrived on Friday, late in the afternoon so could not get to Immigration until the Monday. They said we should have reported on the Friday but when we explained that we had tried but no one had answered they were quite happy. We were late in arriving and our visa had expired 17 days before. We therefore thought that we would only be issued the standard free 21 day visa but they overlooked this (although we did point it out to them) and just changed the date to allow us the full 59 days. No charge, no request for any special payments etc. Customs: Clearing in was no trouble and we were told to come back before we left Davao to clear to our next port of call. HOWEVER clearing out was another story. We first filled out the documentation and paid the 65 p customs stamp fee but the signatory for the clearance was out and could we come back later. Richard returned on his own and the official told him there would be a special fee. What for? Special services. But I have not had any special services. It is a standard fee. What for? Some Australian boats carry drugs and we did not come and search your boat. Do you mean to tell me I have to pay for you not doing your job? No! No! but there is a special fee. What for? Special services, it is standard procedure. On it went, until the man got tired of Richard and gave him the clearance to Cebu. We were later told the fee would have been about 1000 pesos. We were also told that they try to charge for a deratting certificate at about US$200 but pleasure craft do not have to have this. Cebu City When we arrived in Cebu and went to Customs they could not understand why we were there - "You have cleared in at Davao that is all that is necessary, you do not need to see us until you leave the country." After our 59 days were up we went to Immigration in Cebu - their charges are listed in the office for all to see. However they changed twice whilst we were in the Philippines within the 6 month period! Cebu Immigration picked up that we were late arriving in the country and said that we should only have had a 21-day visa. Hence we had overstayed our visa by the number of days from when a 21-day visa would have run out. They would usually charge us for these extra days BUT as it was not our fault and Davao had seen fit to overlook the fact we were late they would not charge us this extra. Charges were:- Visa Waive fee 500p; Extension fee 400p; ACR (?) 400p; Head Tax 200p; LWF (?) 30p. Total 1530p per person for a 59 day visa (of course if we had been on time we would not have had to pay this as our visa was free in Australia) Clearing out - Porta Princessa We were told horror stories of checking out at Porta Princessa and even
expat residents agreed that we would have to pay at least 1000 pesos to get
port clearance etc. So we went in prepared to do battle. The customs
office was very pleasant and whilst his assistant was photocopying some
papers Richard told him the We were told that there were official immigration charges of about 1000 pesos to clear out but we can not confirm this because when we arrived at the office we were told they were closed and would not be open until Monday as the officer was on a field trip.We enquired if anyone else could stamp our passports but no. As this was Thursday and it was a long ride from Oyster Inlet where we were anchored to Porta Princessa we decided to not bother. Hence we left without getting our passports stamped. Upon on arrival at Kota Kinabalu in Sabah we were not even asked about why our passports were not stamped out of the Philippines! It seems it is so common because of the corruption in the Philippines for people to arrive without clearance papers. Dorothy Walker, S.Y. Mariposa |
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