MANILA, 12 July 2021: Fully vaccinated travellers will still have to undergo an RT-PCR test on arrival in Boracay, health authorities confirmed at the weekend.
Looking forward to when domestic and international visitors can once more visit Boracay, officials said it was important to remain vigilant as there was always the possibility that visitors would tamper with vaccination cards.
The Philippines News Agency quoted Aklan Governor Florencio Miraflores, who told reporters: “We’ve decided to retain the rule that all tourists, all arrivals to the island of Boracay should still present their RT-PCR test until such time that we can have a system that can validate vaccination cards.”
Miraflores said there is a high risk of getting fake vaccination cards because even RT-PCR test results have been tampered with before.
The Boracay announcement came following a 2 July Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) resolution allowing fully vaccinated people to forego their RT-PCR test results in interzonal travel.
An hour after Miraflores declared a status quo on entry protocols, the Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the Department of Health (DOH) has decided to require the negative test result again while ironing out the guidelines amid concerns from different local government units.
Boracay has now vaccinated 3,000 tourism workers on the island as part of a project in Aklan to innoculate 40,000 residents and workers.
(Source: PNA)
