Philippines Travel Advice March

[simonspear]

Hi all

We've been thinking about heading over to the Philippines in March for a 3-4 week tour of Cebu and possibly Bohol.

However the UK government has recently issued a travel warning advising UK citazens not to travel to Cebu province due to terrorist activities, stating that 'remote offshore islands and dive boats' are a particular target and that 'plans for an attack are well advanced'. I know there is an almost constant warning for the southern Sulu Sea and Mindanao, but this was the first time I had ever seen Cebu mentioned. (I would like to have quoted word for word on the warning, but the Foreign Office travel web site seems to have gone down at the moment!)

So before we decide on the trip one way or another I wanted to get some feedback from those of you that have been over recently, who are still planning to go soon, or who are obviously based there.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers, Simon

 

[rhadamantus]

this came about due to the Asean Summit that happened last week.

as far as travels to the Philippines is concerned, the only complain i heard from my expatriate' and non-filipino friends who visited the country since september was that they wished there wasn't any typhoon. but even that, the typhoon season, is way over already.

cebu and bohol are alright, simon. and you're gonna have one hell of a time here. .

 

[paolov]

Simon (not mikes' simon)

first of there are quite a number of British Nationals Divng all over the philipipnes. got a couple of dive buddies from the British embassy here in manila diving all over. i can hook you up with them as they would provide you with the low down on Brit perspectives doing "tambay" here in the philippines.

do you know the real reason why they postponed the last years schedule of ASEAN summit. the damn typhoon was just an excuse and the terrorist threat was just played up. the real reason was that THEY WERE not yet done with the preparations for the summit as in under CONSTRUCTION !

so going back to the travel advisory, by march it would be SUMMER TIME and all summer activities are a GO! GO! GO ! if you stick to the established Dive shops and operators and not go wandering off with some smooth talker then you are alright. hmmmm seems i described NY and L.A. with the con artist... they probably learned the con art from watching TV series from USA.

hehehhehehe...

CEBU VISAYAS IS SAFE as long as you keep your sensibilites the way you would in downtown N.Y. and L.A. haven't been to UK so i'd say .

try learning card games like "tong its" and "pusoy dos" it makes Surface interval bonding time with your local surface support guys


.

 

[Babydamulag]

Travel advisory...humpf!! What a way to throw a government into a hissy fit. They "over-state" the obvious. Don't go in bad neighborhoods and you are fine.....just like anywhere else in the world. What a bunch of kaka!!

 

[pakman]

they probably learned the con art from watching TV series from USA.

As an American, I'm offended Pao...

OK gotta, run... gotta watch some A-Team and Walker, Texas Ranger reruns during my lunch break...

 

[paolov]

As an American, I'm offended Pao...

oh sorry for that Pak,

i'll go watch "catch me if you can" now.

and the idol here during the 80's is "Face" of A-Team.

but i think they are now popularizing "Criminal minds" with the Behaviour Analysis Unit of FBI







.

 

[Babydamulag]

Be careful or I'll call TV PATROL!!! LOLOLOL

 

[simonspear]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

I think the part that particularly hit home on the warning was that 'isolated islands' and 'dive boats' were specifically mentioned as being targeted. We're not ones to shy away from going to places just because of 'hype', but this seemed a fairly detailed description of where we were planning to be and what we were going to be doing.

Any travel is never 100% safe and to be honest we probably would have more of a chance of getting into trouble at home in London than on a deserted island just off Cebu! But it's best to be safe than sorry, so thanks for your input.

Cheers, Simon

 

[rhadamantus]

what are you??? have a quadruple citizenship?

As an American, I'm offended Pao...

 

[Mike Veitch]

what are you??? have a quadruple citizenship?

want the simple one word answer?

He is confused....