NO MORE RT-PCR TEST: Fully vaccinated tourists from Panay, Guimaras may enter Boracay

By Jennifer P. Rendon 

Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test result will no longer be required from fully vaccinated tourists from Panay Island and Guimaras who wish to enter Boracay Island.

In an advisory issued by Governor Florencio Miraflores of Aklan dated Oct. 26, 2021, he said that “fully vaccinated tourists coming from within Panay Island, including Guimaras province, may present a VacCertPH COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate secured from https://vaxcert.doh.gov.ph/.”

In case of unavailability of the VaxCertPH, tourists will still be required to present the usual negative RT-PCR test result with a validity of 72 hours from day of extraction in addition to the existing requirements.

In the same advisory, Miraflores said that curfew hours shall now be from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.

“Accordingly, businesses allowed to operate under the General Community Quarantine classification under DTI Memorandum No. 2021-028 may conduct business from 6 a.m. up to 8 p.m.”

Atty. Selwyn Ibarreta, Aklan provincial administrator, said the move was part of Miraflores’ commitment during the Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force (BIATF) meeting last week.

“The Governor committed that if all the tourism workers and residents in the island are fully-vaccinated, we will accept tourists from NCR, anyone from Aklan for that matter, to enter the island even without a negative RT-PCR test result as long as they have vaccination certificate,” he said.

As of Oct 24, provincial health office records indicated that 91.09 percent of all tourism workers and 62.78% of the eligible population of the Island are already inoculated.

Vaccination of eligible population is still going on.

“Allowing fully vaccinated tourists from Panay and Guimaras is like a dry-run for us to know the concerns that we might encounter once we implement allowing tourists from other areas. So, we’d rather do the pilot test from other neighboring provinces,” he said.

To secure a vaccination certification, a fully vaccinated person has to visit https://vaxcert.doh.gov.ph/.

When filling up the entries, the applicant has to choose “travel abroad” for the purpose of the vaccination certificate or else it will be declined by the system.

The certification bears a QR code which the tourist will present when entering the island.

Even with the RT-PCR test result, Ibarreta said they noted a steady increase of tourist arrivals in the past few weeks

On Oct 25, they logged 1,700 tourist arrivals.

Ibarreta said that they would increase scanning tables at the Caticlan Jetty Port because of the increasing number of daily tourist arrivals.

Earlier, the Department of Tourism announced that fully vaccinated individuals going to Boracay Island no longer need to undergo COVID-19 testing by November.

The DOT projected that the eligible population and tourism workers would be fully vaccinated by end of October.