Philippine Immigration Bureau: Departing passengers will not need to fill in paper departure cards from May 1

The Philippine Immigration Bureau (BI) will abolish paper departure cards from May 1.

Instead, passengers will use the online portal to eTravel fill in the departure card no earlier than 72 hours and no later than 3 hours after the scheduled time of the flight.

Originally launched in December, the platform coordinates and integrates the data collection process at the arrival port.

"This is an important step towards streamlining the submission of documents for departing travelers, allowing for faster and more efficient processing of immigration procedures," BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco said in a statement over the weekend, adding that the platform could also be quickly used by arriving travelers.

Dennis Javier, chairman of the eTravel Technical Working Group, said that travelers can register on the portal from April 15.

The system was initiated by a sub-technical working group of the Inter-Agency Working Group chaired by BI.

This is a joint project with the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, the Ministry of Tourism, the Quarantine Service, the Customs Service, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Justice and the National Privacy Commission.