MANILA, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines is studying the possibility of reopening its borders to foreign visitors from countries with low to medium coronavirus transmission, Cabinet Secretary of the Philippines Karlo Nograles said in an interview with state television Wednesday.
Nograles said the country's inter-agency task force for the management of emerging infectious diseases is looking into whether the Philippines' healthcare capacity will be adequate should the country decide to ease travel restrictions to foreigners.
"On the non-essential inbound, this is being studied. As I said, it is a step-by-step process. We must prepare the ground. We need to know the number of expected overseas Filipinos and if our country's carrying capacity and health care system can handle it," Nograles said.
Nograles said the government is also looking into the low-medium transmission countries and studying the "factor of reciprocity" for countries that have allowed Filipino travelers.
"Because there are other countries that accept visitors from the Philippines, so we will look into the option of reciprocity," Nograles said.
"If they are accepting Filipinos, if they have low transmission, maybe we can agree to accept visitors from these countries again as reciprocity," Nograles added.
The Philippines banned the entry of foreign travelers into the country in March to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
The country recently lifted the restriction on non-essential outbound travel for Filipinos effective Wednesday.
The Philippines has reported a total of 362,243 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 311,506 recoveries and 6,747 deaths. Enditem
