Encouraging news from BI today ?

[hk blues]

13 hours ago, DaveB said:

Amen to the perspective that it is a good long term solution.  Certainly not flawless, but at least as good as current restrictions on moderating the infection spread, with the badly needed relief for the economy thrown in.

My problem, as noted by others, is that it is a LONG term solution.  I'm in the US, having come back to ship my household goods to my nice one year leased house in Angeles City and see my kids for the holidays.  Three days before my return, the door slammed shut...supposedly until Jan 15 - which is today Manila time.  And still stone cold silence from the BI on what's next..

I've been hoping for something like "you can now enter but only if you have a recent COVID test".  I can work that.  But I've been worried that the solution will be "you can enter but only if vaccinated".  I'm months away from being on a vaccination list, and my wife, being younger is even longer (though as a Filipina she can work around it with the current rules).;

I'm all for the long term solution.  What I need now is the interim solution that gets me back to the life I started living in the Philippines.  Doesn't make much sense to me to restrict spouses and let in wives - if I've got the bug, so does she - to say nothing of letting in OFWs.  They need to get real - that new strain of COVID is already in the Philippines.  They need to focus on methods to detect and contain it and I'll play by any rules they come up with.  Just define the blasted rules.

I sympathise, really I do.

But, the focus here is not on how to accommodate the exceptions, the minority, the outliers but the 'normal' critical mass. They struggle even to do that so...

Again, please don't misinterpret my post, but they simply don't have the wherewithal to go much beyond the typical here.

I hope they will give you the guidance you need to help you start putting it all together ASAP so you can get on with your life as a family.

[DaveB]

On 1/15/2021 at 1:22 AM, hk blues said:

I sympathise, really I do.

But, the focus here is not on how to accommodate the exceptions, the minority, the outliers but the 'normal' critical mass. They struggle even to do that so...

Again, please don't misinterpret my post, but they simply don't have the wherewithal to go much beyond the typical here.

I hope they will give you the guidance you need to help you start putting it all together ASAP so you can get on with your life as a family.

I'm kinda thinking much the same.  My read on the sudden restrictions: up pops a new strain of COVID and very little is known about it.  Best immediate action is a simple sweeping shut down until more is understood, especially considering the underlying fact that it wouldn't take much to totally overwhelm the Philippine medical infrastructure.

My main hope is that, having gained 30 days to really understand the situation, common sense will start to rear its ugly head.  Main disconnect in logic I am experiencing is that my Filipina wife can now fly to the Philippines and go through the extra quarantine/screening  steps, and then be cleared to enter the country.  The logic break down is that I can't - on the simple basis of nationality.  I'm hoping it will occur to the government that any state of infection/non-infection pertaining to my wife is exactly the same status I am in.  Been kissing the woman good night for 30 years.  So...if the extra screening and requirements for entry assure them of prudent safety steps for all Filipinos, the exact same steps should pertain to me.  Thus...I"m hoping, when the next shoe drops on Jan 31, they will reinstate the prior restrictions and allow Filipinos to enter accompanied by their spouses...and I won't be surprised if they add in a need for a negative COVID test as a condition to board the airplane.  Whatever they consider prudent, I'll do it without complaint.  Just hoping that, after a month of analysis, these kinds of anomalies can be reviewed and lead to a conclusion that some tempering of the flat "all or nothing" policy " to address such exceptions that will have a negligible impact on infection rates.

I also won't be surprised if they decide to start only letting in people who are vaccinated.  With the US chaos around anything COVID - including vaccination roll out - I may be here a while.  If that's what it takes, I guess that's what it takes.  Speculation is useless - gotta wait for that other shoe to drop and figure out what to do next.

[hk blues]

3 hours ago, DaveB said:

I'm kinda thinking much the same.  My read on the sudden restrictions: up pops a new strain of COVID and very little is known about it.  Best immediate action is a simple sweeping shut down until more is understood, especially considering the underlying fact that it wouldn't take much to totally overwhelm the Philippine medical infrastructure.

My main hope is that, having gained 30 days to really understand the situation, common sense will start to rear its ugly head.  Main disconnect in logic I am experiencing is that my Filipina wife can now fly to the Philippines and go through the extra quarantine/screening  steps, and then be cleared to enter the country.  The logic break down is that I can't - on the simple basis of nationality.  I'm hoping it will occur to the government that any state of infection/non-infection pertaining to my wife is exactly the same status I am in.  Been kissing the woman good night for 30 years.  So...if the extra screening and requirements for entry assure them of prudent safety steps for all Filipinos, the exact same steps should pertain to me.  Thus...I"m hoping, when the next shoe drops on Jan 31, they will reinstate the prior restrictions and allow Filipinos to enter accompanied by their spouses...and I won't be surprised if they add in a need for a negative COVID test as a condition to board the airplane.  Whatever they consider prudent, I'll do it without complaint.  Just hoping that, after a month of analysis, these kinds of anomalies can be reviewed and lead to a conclusion that some tempering of the flat "all or nothing" policy " to address such exceptions that will have a negligible impact on infection rates.

I also won't be surprised if they decide to start only letting in people who are vaccinated.  With the US chaos around anything COVID - including vaccination roll out - I may be here a while.  If that's what it takes, I guess that's what it takes.  Speculation is useless - gotta wait for that other shoe to drop and figure out what to do next.

I think you know by now that the application of logic isn't a strength of most governments, and particularly true here.  It's like eating in a restaurant here - we need a plexiglass screen between us yet we share a bed together every night.  I understand the lack of logic in the case of allowing Filipinos to enter but not their spouses but I suppose they feel they are doing damage limitation i.e. halving the risk of importing infection - that makes sense on a very, very superficial level but scratch a little below and you can see how it doesn't really work in totality.  

Again, you're doing all you can so just need to be patient.  

[Jollygoodfellow]

13 hours ago, hk blues said:

It's like eating in a restaurant here - we need a plexiglass screen between us yet we share a bed together every night. 

So a restaurant is set up knowing who is related and who is not?

Talk about logic or lack of it from the customer.

I guess they could set up tables for married with a marriage certificate and more tables for perhaps those who are dating or cheating but how do they comply to the rules?

How to please everyone is difficult and to comply with the current rules which at least in my area has seemed to be long gone as in seating.

But encouraging news from the BI? where did that come from lol

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Jollygoodfellow

[hk blues]

10 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

So a restaurant is set up knowing who is related and who is not?

Talk about logic or lack of it from the customer.

I guess they could set up tables for married with a marriage certificate and more tables for perhaps those who are dating or cheating but how do they comply to the rules?

How to please everyone is difficult and to comply with the current rules which at least in my area has seemed to be long gone as in seating.

But encouraging news from the BI? where did that come from lol

 

It's bad enough eating with my wife never mind someone else's!

It's hardly a lack of logic to suggest that a rule that people can wander around a mall together but not eat together isn't the most sensible.  How many people who don't know each would actually sit at the same table and eat together? Not many in my experience. 

Anyhow, rules are rules and I follows regardless of my agreeing with them.  

[graham59]

20 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

But encouraging news from the BI? where did that come from lol

There is a question mark after it. 

In other words...'please discuss'.  

[RBM]

Encouraging news from BI....Well positive news here.

Went to the BI obtained 6 months extension, in and out in less than 15 minutes, all with smiles and politeness.