Perhaps a push towards reopening?

[Skyman 289]

[payxibka 10,044]

1 hour ago, Skyman said:

Not that I read.  This is about leniency towards individuals stranded inside the Philippines that have overstayed there visas or run out of money because they were prevented from leaving 

[flicks1998 1,044]

49 minutes ago, payxibka said:

Not that I read.  This is about leniency towards individuals stranded inside the Philippines that have overstayed there visas or run out of money because they were prevented from leaving 

Exactly. Nothing about reopening. The problem happening now are a lot who entered on a 9a are almost at their 3 year limit for extensions and can no longer extend. I hear BI is giving one month grace periods, with a large fee, but that’s it.  But a lot brought this on themselves by not thinking or planning on getting a more longer term visa. 

[payxibka 10,044]

5 minutes ago, flicks1998 said:

Exactly. Nothing about reopening. The problem happening now are a lot who entered on a 9a are almost at their 3 year limit for extensions and can no longer extend. I hear BI is giving one month grace periods, with a large fee, but that’s it.  But a lot brought this on themselves by not thinking or planning on getting a more longer term visa. 

Or taking advantage of one of the hundreds of repatriation flights that were available 

[Skyman 289]

1 hour ago, payxibka said:

Not that I read.  This is about leniency towards individuals stranded inside the Philippines that have overstayed there visas or run out of money because they were prevented from leaving 

I guess I misread that first paragraph.

 

There are a lot of tourists that have come up to the 3 year limit that are getting shafted to stay.  Of course, it's their own fault for assuming they could leave at 3 years and come right back to start over.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Skyman

[Joe Kano 327]

5 hours ago, Skyman said:

I guess I misread that first paragraph.

 

There are a lot of tourists that have come up to the 3 year limit that are getting shafted to stay.  Of course, it's their own fault for assuming they could leave at 3 years and come right back to start over.

It was the thing to do forever, nobody ever thought this pandemic would last this long

[Skyman 289]

1 hour ago, Joe Kano said:

It was the thing to do forever, nobody ever thought this pandemic would last this long

Completely legal by the letter of the law but I don't think the law writers ever intended it to be used as a near permanent tourist visa.  Before the lockdown entry agents were starting to give people a hard time for doing it over and over.  Not hard enough to prevent it but still.  Now there are problems for people who didn't even abuse the system like that.  I have an Ozzie friend and his Filipina wife who'd spend a year or 2 in Oz and then come over for less than a year.  He never stayed beyond the 1 year BB visa and go back.  But now he can't afford the quarantine charge for both of them to go back and he's had to extend the BB (both him and his wife as I can't convince her she needs to get her RP citizenship back) to a normal tourist visa for over a year.  Won't be long before they're up to the three year limit themselves.

[Joe Kano 327]

1 hour ago, Skyman said:

Completely legal by the letter of the law but I don't think the law writers ever intended it to be used as a near permanent tourist visa.  Before the lockdown entry agents were starting to give people a hard time for doing it over and over.  Not hard enough to prevent it but still.  Now there are problems for people who didn't even abuse the system like that.  I have an Ozzie friend and his Filipina wife who'd spend a year or 2 in Oz and then come over for less than a year.  He never stayed beyond the 1 year BB visa and go back.  But now he can't afford the quarantine charge for both of them to go back and he's had to extend the BB (both him and his wife as I can't convince her she needs to get her RP citizenship back) to a normal tourist visa for over a year.  Won't be long before they're up to the three year limit themselves.

My relative moved over there about 3 years ago, he is going ahead and get his permanent residence visa. 

 

When they get rid of the quarantines and all the travel ban stuff in Philippines I will be on plane over there, The way things are going it looking like early 2022 is more realistic, but have slight hope for PI opening up late 4th quarter of this year, October is a good time to travel to Philippines, I like spending time there during Holy Week.  Hotels get crazy cheap in Manila due to all the people leaving and going back home to the province.

[Skyman 289]

18 minutes ago, Joe Kano said:

My relative moved over there about 3 years ago, he is going ahead and get his permanent residence visa. 

 

When they get rid of the quarantines and all the travel ban stuff in Philippines I will be on plane over there, The way things are going it looking like early 2022 is more realistic, but have slight hope for PI opening up late 4th quarter of this year, October is a good time to travel to Philippines, I like spending time there during Holy Week.  Hotels get crazy cheap in Manila due to all the people leaving and going back home to the province.

I've lived here about 13 years now, the last 12+ as a permanent resident.  I'm going back to the US for a good 10 months probably in a couple weeks.  Even as a permanent resident I'm currently banned unless my wife comes with but that won't happen before she gets her GC.

[Joe Kano 327]

12 minutes ago, Skyman said:

I've lived here about 13 years now, the last 12+ as a permanent resident.  I'm going back to the US for a good 10 months probably in a couple weeks.  Even as a permanent resident I'm currently banned unless my wife comes with but that won't happen before she gets her GC.

What area were you living in?

 

Did you have a house or condo? Did you rent?

[Skyman 289]

2 hours ago, Joe Kano said:

What area were you living in?

 

Did you have a house or condo? Did you rent?

Cebu province. Have some land I built a house on.  

[Joe Kano 327]

7 hours ago, Skyman said:

Cebu province. Have some land I built a house on.  

I am really starting to like Cebu. I have made a few trips there in the past. I haven't been there since 2012.

 

I see a development called Newtown Beach area.  It's like a masterplanned Condo area.  Really looks interesting, nice streets with actual sidewalks you can walk on without potholes or missing pieces of concrete or holes in the streets.  

 

I see they have condos renting for like $450 per month which per pandemic were going for $700 per month.  

[rlogan 2,036]

Philippines has so disgusted us with their idiotic response to Covid that we have cancelled our retirement move there.

 

How stupid, you fools.  We were negotiating for a half-mile of beach frontage on a nice island last February.  We had to flee before we finished the sale, and they stopped my wife from boarding because Duterte (who we loved before this) outlawed Filipinos from most Asia destinations.  She made it out on an alternate route but got sick from the stress.  

 

I am a construction contractor and have already built one house in the Philippines, but was looking forward to employing half a village to build a break-water, a pier, and another larger home.    We built a small experimental fish farm in the USA to gain the experience we needed running one in the Philippines.  We would have employed another family on the farm, but now I have scuttled the whole thing.  All of our resources that would have supported Filipinos - it's all thrown away.   

 

What they don't understand is that even if Philippines came to its senses and removed all the economy-destroying restrictions, people like us will not trust them ever again.  Come back?  Why should I?   By far my highest priority in the future is which places respected the rights of its citizens.  I'll be in Mexico in a few weeks to get my dental work done instead of Philippines.  More money down the tubes for both the dentists and some young hotties who would have enjoyed my company.  Now the latina girls will be giving my money to their families.  

 

I would expect Philippines to do exactly as it has:  to continue being a leader in stupidity by being a follower of dictatorial fads.   Governments are eager now to impose "health passports" and other permanent inhibitions to travel.   Philippines will do whatever the most restrictive countries do.  

 

The money they have handed out created new corrupt and vile Barangay Captains and public health officials.  Giving people power like this is guaranteed injustice and a proliferation of petty tyrannies.

 

My wife and I had not even bothered to apply for her US Citizenship because we were so intent on moving to the Philippines.   But after this asinine move by Philippines, she got her US Citizenship and we live in an area with no restrictions whatsoever.   People are happy.  They smile at each other and act cheerfully.  When we go to a city that has restrictions, the tension is palpable. It's like your humanity has been removed.  

 

 

[Skyman 289]

11 hours ago, rlogan said:

 We had to flee before we finished the sale, and they stopped my wife from boarding because Duterte (who we loved before this) outlawed Filipinos from most Asia destinations.  She made it out on an alternate route but got sick from the stress.  

I can imagine the stress level but as I recall there was only 1 or 2 short periods when pinoy with perm residents in other countries weren't allowed to leave. It's probably an interesting story how your wife did get out though. My wife had renewed her pp in January and her B-2 in February and we had tickets booked on PAL CEB-LAX for May for our biannual trip to visit the kids/grandkids for 6 weeks.  A few weeks later the flights were canceled and tourists were no longer allowed to leave.  So we rode it out until August when the rule changed and I was in the midst of looking for new flights when after only a week, the rule changed back. That was the last straw. I had always had a plan of going back to the US long enough to get her a blue passport to make travel easier someday and I decided someday had arrived. 

I have to say I understand the logic behind preventing tourists from departing as typically they go for a few weeks and return. It was the returning they were preventing. OFWs, people with immigrant visas or foreign permanent residence or citizenship typically leave for long periods. 

The rule against tourists leaving had some exceptions and one of them was medical reasons. I was not able to locate any way to obtain some medical clearance so I could feel confident in our ability to leave. The answer I got from the BI was that it would be up to agent at the airport.  So with a lot of 🙏 I booked a 6 month round trip leaving on Cathay Pacific which was then about the only airline not requiring a test. Then I signed us up for the US version of military health care, Tricare Prime and set her up with a list of appointments and a bunch of documentation on their available medical treatment programs. I assumed we would have drama at the airport so we arrived 4 hours before the flight.

After half an hour we were all but checked in when the Cathay Pacific agent noticed her tourist visa and they tore off the bag tags and tore up our boarding passes. I showed the supervisor a copy of the rule allowing medical reasons, gave her our stack of medical papers and they seemed most interested in our military ID cards for some reason.  They told us to sit down while they emailed the BI in Manila. 

Hours later and 10 minutes before our flight was to board I told my wife I didn't think we'd be going anywhere but home.  And then suddenly they said we could check in again. They were quick about it and we ran to immigration where I paid my exit fees and they too had a problem with her being a tourist. So I told them we already went through all that with Cathay Pacific who cleared it with the main BI but that didn't matter.  So out with the stack of medical papers and military ID. I was hoping the fact we had a six month round trip would help but that rationale probably hadn't been conveyed to the grunt level.  Luckily, there was a supervisor present who called Manila and got the ok. Then it was a very sweaty dash to the gate expecting to go straight on the plane if at all. Boarding was delayed though and so we sat there nervously for a while. Departure was also delayed.  I can't help thinking the delays may have been them waiting for our luggage. My wife was excited when we sat down but I said we weren't airborne yet. I wasn't happy until we were halfway to Hong Kong then if the planehad trouble,  they wouldn'treturn.   I really felt like we had a little taste of what a Jewish couple experienced trying to escape nazi Germany.  I kept waiting for some IO to come on the plane looking for us like a Gistapo officer.

Only one minor glitch after that. Arriving in SFO I had to go through a different line as my wife and the IO asked her about the 6 month r/t and she volunteered that it might be longer.  Oy!   Luckily the IO just said if she needed to extend she should do it before the 3 month point. 

Of course, a month later the rule changed again allowing pinoy tourists to leave but that escape had cemented my resolve to get her at least a GC before returning.  A couple weeks later I efiled an I-130 and sent in her I-485 shortly after.  

The return tickets the end of February worked out well. I moved my return up 2 weeks and the flight we had been on was canceled so Cathay Pacific refunded half the r/t cost of her ticket which surprised expecting only the r/t cost minus a 1 way cost which would have been about half of what they gave me. On my return I had a week in a cheap hotel, a test, and another 9 days home quarantine.  Coming back I have been able to take care of a lot of government paperwork, vehicle registrations, property taxes, overdue home maintenance, lawn mower repair so my caretakercan keep up with the yard and stocked upon dog food, as well as furthering my current construction project which is a new septic tank to be used by both the new house when it is built and the old house until the one is built. The old septic is still fine but sits in the location of the new house.  And loose some 30+ covid pounds because my wife is too good of a cook.  

I'm going back to the US in 10 days or so but booked 1 way because it will likely be a year before I'm back here. Unfortunately,  it looks like Cathay Pacific has given up on flying out of Cebu or I would be with them again despite the drama from the last departure. 

It's funny because right now I'm actually the one banned from returning if I don't bring her with me. She should have a GC by the time I come back though so maybe she can come with for a couple months. Right now she'll just have to face time her family. I warned her it be over 3 years before she comes back.

Days after filing the I-130 we bought a new Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid and it already has over 15K miles on it touring around the country visiting friends and family, staying with them or in hotels or sleeping in the van. When I get back we'll rent a 1br/ba in San Antonio and stay at least 3-4 months. I really don't relish the thought of becoming a resident of any state but Texas seems like a good choice if I have to.

 

[John & Rose 7,239]

Just got this from a relative in Manila.