Immigration having hard time knowing travel history of inbound travelers from S. Korea

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has yet to enforce the travel ban on inbound passengers from South Korea's North Gyeongsang province due to issues in identifying the passengers’ travel history, the agency’s spokesperson said Thursday.

Immigration Spokesperson Dana Sandoval said it is difficult to ascertain whether inbound passengers from South Korea had come from the places where the Philippine government imposed a travel ban.

The BI only relies on the stamps on passengers’ passports to determine which country they arrived from, according to a Balitanghali report by Maki Pulido.

However, the BI said it has already begun implementing the travel ban for outbound passengers bound for South Korea.

The travel ban for outbound passengers does not cover Filipino migrant workers, permanent residents of South Korea or students studying there, as well as foreigners.

Malacañang announced the partial travel ban on South Korea on Wednesday following a surge of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases there.

The ban also bars Filipino tourists from going to any part of South Korea.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier said he is opposed to a total travel ban over the East Asian nation.

South Korea has the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases at 1,595 and 13 deaths, following the outbreak’s epicenter of China which has tallied over 78,000 cases and more than 2,700 deaths. — Julia Mari Ornedo/MDM, GMA News