Expat Community > Philippines

TeeJay4103
Joined 2014
Posts: 643

Balikbayan Stamp

3 years ago

This was just shared by another expat who, with his Filipina wife, just returned to the Philippines and received the Balikbayan stamp in his passport

The details:

" Quick Summary of Flight to Manila and Balikbayan entry into the Philippines.
We exited NAIA 60 minutes ago.
We flew with NO VISA to use the Balikbayan entry allowed married couples per IATF guidelines.
PAL was aok with the no visa travel and verified our apostilled marriage cert and passports. (The wife is a dual citizen so they also verified that since she has a USA passport)
Upon entry into NAIA the Coasties and BI folks verify all online documents, hotels, and testing appt documents that you need to do per the PAL info on their Covid and travel pages and specific travel areas. Chilled out entry folks were as smooth as could be.
Immigration was super cool and stamped the Balikbayan on my passport without hesitation.
( we entered in Feb this year on a BB and had to leave in June for family illness, so were gone for a month). I assume the customs/BI guys had that on record and didn't need anything but IDs to prove who we were.)
Out the door to Kabayan hotel (Older but not expensive) for quarantine and then on to Palawan as soon as the wardens let us go..
MORAL of this POST
Ken and others have said this many times - do not believe all what people say online as it can be totally false or 1/2 truths. VERIFY everything on BI sites or on PAL which was very accurate. Its worrisome to me that eligible couples could stop from coming here to Manila just because the wrong info was commented in these posts!"

Courtesy of James R.

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