Is "offloading" only for PI passport holders or anyone leaving the Philippines?

[bowgurl1980 3]

Hello. 

We are going to Manila on vacation in June-July for 6 weeks.

My kids and I will get there first and my husband will follow.

Then we are going to South Korea with my sister (2 days after my kids and I land) and my husband and I will go to Bali 4 days after he arrive. My question is..is 'offloading' only for Philippine passport holders? I have both Philippines and US passport as well as my kids but intend to just use the US passport when we touchdown Manila and departure to Korea and Indonesia. Will this be questionable for IOs for US passport holders leaving the Philippines within 15 days and return?

I am just so paranoid about this offloading issues at the airport immigration I came across in social media. Our flights, hotels and tours are already booked and do not want to lose money because of power tripping IOs. I'm not sure if using my Philippine passport on arrivals and US passport on departures will make a difference. What do you guys think?

Thanks for your input.

[confusedshoes 193]

You're thinking about this too much and you should relax. This 'offloading' issue usually targets single female Ph passport holders that are travelling alone, don't have much travel history and look nervous. From what you've said, you're married, traveling with kids, travelling outside of PH with your husband and have a US passport aside from a Ph passport. You'll be fine. And even if you were the targeted demographic, as long as you have all the required paperwork for your kind of travel, can converse firmly, truthfully and with confidence, you'll also be fine. Just arrive with enough time for Immigration BS when departing Philippines (at least 3 hours).

 

Since your Ph stay is less than 1 year (at least when you go to Bali), don't forget to get the travel tax waiver at the airport when you leave the Philippines.

[Adventine 3,201]

As mentioned above, PH immigration officers often target travelers who fit the profile of potential human trafficking victims. Single, young Filipinas without much of a travel history, without personal assets of their own, without a decent stable job... you know the type. 

 

I personally travelled a lot as a single Filipina and never got offloaded. I never had to show documentation about my job or assets, but I always had them with me, just in case. It helped a lot that I always answered questions confidently and in a relaxed manner. 

[bowgurl1980 3]

2 minutes ago, Adventine said:

As mentioned above, PH immigration officers often target travelers who fit the profile of potential human trafficking victims. Single, young Filipinas without much of a travel history, without personal assets of their own, without a decent stable job... you know the type. 

 

I personally travelled a lot as a single Filipina and never got offloaded. I never had to show documentation about my job or assets, but I always had them with me, just in case. It helped a lot that I always answered questions confidently and in a relaxed manner. 

Thank you. I didn't have any issue when I went to Dubai and Hongkong when I was single in 2000's. I actually didn't know about offloading that time. I just heard about it recently in social media and went into panic mode because we invested so much for this upcoming trip. Thank you for responding.

[bowgurl1980 3]

1 hour ago, confusedshoes said:

You're thinking about this too much and you should relax. This 'offloading' issue usually targets single female Ph passport holders that are travelling alone, don't have much travel history and look nervous. From what you've said, you're married, traveling with kids, travelling outside of PH with your husband and have a US passport aside from a Ph passport. You'll be fine. And even if you were the targeted demographic, as long as you have all the required paperwork for your kind of travel, can converse firmly, truthfully and with confidence, you'll also be fine. Just arrive with enough time for Immigration BS when departing Philippines (at least 3 hours).

 

Since your Ph stay is less than 1 year (at least when you go to Bali), don't forget to get the travel tax waiver at the airport when you leave the Philippines.

Great! Thank you. And thank you for mentioning the tax waiver. I hope I won't forget it this year because I totally forgot about that last time we went in 2018.

[IWander 589]

9 hours ago, confusedshoes said:

You're thinking about this too much and you should relax. This 'offloading' issue usually targets single female Ph passport holders that are travelling alone, don't have much travel history and look nervous. From what you've said, you're married, traveling with kids, travelling outside of PH with your husband and have a US passport aside from a Ph passport. You'll be fine. And even if you were the targeted demographic, as long as you have all the required paperwork for your kind of travel, can converse firmly, truthfully and with confidence, you'll also be fine. Just arrive with enough time for Immigration BS when departing Philippines (at least 3 hours).

 

Since your Ph stay is less than 1 year (at least when you go to Bali), don't forget to get the travel tax waiver at the airport when you leave the Philippines.

What tax waiver?  Are you referring to TIEZA?  I just left the Philippines this morning and paid no travel tax and got no waiver 

[top_secret 2,458]

3 hours ago, IWander said:

What tax waiver?  Are you referring to TIEZA?  I just left the Philippines this morning and paid no travel tax and got no waiver 

Are you Filipino?   The travel tax waiver applies to Filipino citizens who are permanent residents overseas or are duel citizens.  They would need the travel tax waiver to avoid paying travel tax when departing on a Philippine passport.

[Adventine 3,201]

4 hours ago, IWander said:

What tax waiver?  Are you referring to TIEZA?  I just left the Philippines this morning and paid no travel tax and got no waiver 

Yep, it's the TIEZA travel tax exemption. I applied for it before going to the airport last year for my flight PH-US. I'm a PH passport holder with a GC.

[top_secret 2,458]

In the recent offloading incident making the rounds of social media and then getting coverage in philippine news media, there were some statistics released by BI.  Apparently in 2022, 32,404 Filipino travelers were "offloaded" and stopped from leaving the country by Philippine Immigration.  Which does seem a bit excessive and out of control. 

 

https://www.manilastandard.net/news/national/314315916/revilla-slams-bi-on-offloading-incidents.html

[bowgurl1980 3]

On 3/21/2023 at 1:57 AM, top_secret said:

Are you Filipino?   The travel tax waiver applies to Filipino citizens who are permanent residents overseas or are duel citizens.  They would need the travel tax waiver to avoid paying travel tax when departing on a Philippine passport.

Hi there. So, we don't need the waiver if we leave the Philippines on a US passport, correct?

[flicks1998 1,044]

On 3/21/2023 at 8:21 PM, top_secret said:

In the recent offloading incident making the rounds of social media and then getting coverage in philippine news media, there were some statistics released by BI.  Apparently in 2022, 32,404 Filipino travelers were "offloaded" and stopped from leaving the country by Philippine Immigration.  Which does seem a bit excessive and out of control. 

 

https://www.manilastandard.net/news/national/314315916/revilla-slams-bi-on-offloading-incidents.html

Especially when you consider the first 4-5 months of 2022, there were limited or less international flights.  It comes to around 90 people per day were offloaded throughout the Philippines in 2022.

 

The article lists 472 related to human trafficking, 873 for misrepresentation.  I wonder what category the other 31,000 fell under given the whole point of offloading is supposedly to prevent human trafficking as well as misrepresentation.  It just further confirms the abuse of the program.

 

According to the BI, of the 32,404 Filipinos offloaded in 2022, only 472 were related to human trafficking, 873 allegedly misrepresented themselves, and 10 were minors.

[confusedshoes 193]

1 hour ago, bowgurl1980 said:

Hi there. So, we don't need the waiver if we leave the Philippines on a US passport, correct?

So if you look at the TIEZA page about the Travel Tax exemption,  you will read that the 2nd to the last box in the table in the 'WHO MAY BE EXEMPTED FROM PAYING THE TRAVEL TAX' section applies to you, a dual citizen. So like with all of the others types of exemptions, these people who are exempted have to get a Travel Tax Waiver if you don't want to pay travel tax. 

 

If you look at the Philippine Consulate page about Dual Citizens, there's a FAQ section that says exactly what you have to do: get a Travel Tax Waiver.

 

If you don't get a Waiver, the person at the check in counter for your airline will ask you to pay the Travel Tax. You will tell them that you're exempted. And then they'll tell you to walk yourself to the TIEZA counter so you can get a Travel Tax Waiver and come back to them so they can give you your boarding pass. It's also possible that you've already paid the travel tax as part of your ticket, (some airlines automatically charge for this when you pay for the ticket exiting Philippines), you're good to go. I don't think they do refunds.

 

If you want to try, you're supposed to be able to get the waiver online from this TIEZA page. I've never tried this though, let us know if you do!

Edited March 23, 2023 by confusedshoes

[confusedshoes 193]

I just read that PCG site again and it says, Dual Citizens irrespective of which passport used for travel have to pay travel tax if the stay is for over 1 year. But it also specifically says if your arrival stamp is on a Philippine passport, you get exempted from travel tax. Doesn't say anything about not needing to get the waiver if you're using a foreign passport. The TIEZA page also has inconsistencies:

Balikbayans whose stay is less than 1 year, and then on the right (requirements column), duration of which is at least 1 year. Like... which is it? 

 

I would just get the waiver which any of them will be happy to take and get on with my life, rather than open myself to the possibility of another nonsensical argument about useless red tape and bureaucracy at the airport.