Nathan Alden, Sr.

We're actually married. My goal is to immediately apply for the 13(a) visa upon arrival, which means I'd only need to extend my stay for a month or two.

After a ton of research last night, I determined that the better thing to do is enter the country under the 30-day visa exemption, then apply for an extension, and then continue that process as long as necessary.

Yep, I discovered the alternate way to apply but the Houston consulate directs me to a website that has been "under maintenance" since May 31. From https://houstonpcg.dfa.gov.ph/index.php/consular-services/visa-services:

I also discovered that the DFA's visa application website has also been down for maintenance since May 31, 2024. There appears to be no way to actually submit a Philippines visa application at the moment because the government's policy is to use one of these two systems. I emailed the Houston consolate to report the issues and ask for advice.

I reported this to a DFA support email address since I couldn't find a single piece of contact information on the eVisaPH website. I'll see what they say, if anything. This seems like a pretty serious bug.

Slightly off-topic, but I figured many of you would have done this during your interactions with the Philippines. I just created an account on the otherwise-excellent eVisaPH website. I filled out all my personal information as required. I triple-checked that everything is correct. However, when I begin a new visa application, for some reason the website populates the Country of Application box with only India! I have no idea why this is happening. There is absolutely no reference to India in my personal information. I am not using a VPN and I'm connecting to the website from Texas. Has anyone run into this problem before? There doesn't seem to be any way to contact them to report a website bug. The Country of Citizenship drop-down list is in several other places on the website and they all auto-populate with only India. Manually typing in United States of America does not work.

I decided to have a bit of fun with this by editing the browser DOM:

Hah, I just experienced that for myself this morning. Now it's 18 months! I would love to see the database query they're using to calculate this number.

Very interesting. See, this is why I love asking VisaJourney these questions! There's an answer somewhere if I dig deeply enough. 😊

From what I can tell, the Balikbayan privilege only applies if we both return at the same time from overseas. She doesn't even have a passport yet, and getting a B-2 visa so that she can come here and then return with me will take a long time, I suspect. However, I was not able to find an official .ph website that describes the exact restrictions.

Yeah, I understand that, believe me. I'm not claiming to have been singled out at all.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. My wife already lives in the Philippines (she doesn't have a passport yet) and I'm a US citizen living in the US. Can you elaborate?

Thanks @Theersink. That was my impression, too, after I had read that same information the other day. I just wanted to check my assumptions.

I'm a US citizen who filed an I-130 petition electronically for a CR1/IR1 visa for my Filipina spouse a couple of days ago. This morning I noticed a new tab titled myProgress appear on the USCIS My Account page: Not much to say about that estimate other than 😢. USCIS is completely broken.

I recently visited my now-wife for about 28 days, which doesn't require a tourist visa. How many days total per year may I visit the Philippines as a US citizen, with or without a tourist visa? I know some countries have limitations on the total number of days per year one may visit.

I'm following this thread, too. It seems like approval timelines have built-in assumptions about the availability of medical exams and interview slots. It also seems like the processes probably don't account for when those things get so drawn out as to cause problems with approval timelines.

I'm curious about the medical exam issue. I've seen this mentioned on a couple of threads already. Does the Philippines simply not have enough medical facilities that can perform the exams, or is this a more localized issue with where the OP/beneficiary lives?

Right; I am following the rules. The question I had for the Consulate was which rules, which they have now answered.

@Theersink Thanks for the details; this really helps! Do you recommend her signing the original there in the Philippines, then sending it to me along with the other evidence she has to send me? Then I just add my signature and send everything in?

Thank you VisaJourney!!!

I'll be filing the I-130 shortly! My bride is out getting her passport photo as I type this. All she has to do after that is scan one of the signed affidavits.

@Theersink I used the fillable form already. The instructions that the San Francisco consulate told me today over the phone are authoritative clearly say the form must be notarized. My question was the exact logistics of notarization due to two signatures and two geographic locations.

I hope when my bride goes to get her signature on the Report of Marriage form notarized, the notary won't complain about me not being there to sign my name. If we have to both be physically present for notarization of any of these documents, that will really suck.

Here is the final version of my cover letter. Thank you to @hunny&me for the inspiration! This was the result of hours of work.

I shouldn't have used the term "apostilled version" as that is not accurate, but, in essence, yes. According to the most recent checklist: The new checklist has significantly relaxed requirements compared to the incorrect version on the main page. Both versions differ significantly from what the DFA claims they want if one were in Manila filing directly. It's super confusing. Whenever I see the term "original" in relation to a vital record like a birth certificate, I always substitute it in my mind with "certified copy." They seem to be used interchangeably depending on who wrote the language in these things.