Travel During Enhanced Community Quarantine

It's halfway through the year 2021. Unlike 2020 where my husband and I just stayed at home most of the time, this year, my family had been to different places, traveled to many out-of-town locations and a lot of things happened. Thus, while assessing it, my husband and I thought it was indeed a good move to return to Bohol.

Today's article talks about what we had done to be able to get to Bohol despite the strict travel restrictions imposed by the government last 2020 during the enhanced community quarantine.

Backstory

My due date was July 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, my parents who live in Bohol had promised to be with me to help me with taking care of the baby but due to the restrictions and border limits, they weren't able to get to the city. It was also not a good idea because only one person can get to the hospital room. Plus they were both seniors, it was too risky for them to travel.

So, it was just the two of us, my husband and I were the only ones who were there from pregnancy until I gave birth. When I was admitted and was in the labor room for more than 15 hours, my husband was very worried, without the prayers of our brothers and sisters in Christ, I believe he might not be able to sleep well that night.

On our first days as first-time parents, we were both exhausted, thank God for paternity leave, my husband was hands-on in doing the house chores, cooking the dishes, doing the laundry for the baby, cleaning the house, and also taking care of Matti.

Then his paternity leave ended after a week, though he still has another seven days of extended paternity leave from my own SSS allocation, we decided to keep that for future emergency use like baby checkups.

This was when we felt the need to go home. My wound was still not healed, I still felt pain in breastfeeding, I had zero sleep and I felt definitely miserable for Matti's neonatal acne and I had so much I think I might have been having postpartum depression. I cry even in the smallest things and my husband can only wish he could help.

My parents suggested going home to Bohol. We considered going to my husband's place but the internet there was not good, it won't be enough for my husband's day work requirement. So Bohol it is.

Preparing the Documents

Traveling to Bohol requires a lot of documents due to the community quarantine restrictions. I was not sure how to start but I heard of many other people who were able to reach home so I inquired from them and realized that there are different requirements per province and even per town as this process has been handed over to the respective local government units.

I joined a Facebook group that helps those who needed information and finally I knew the first step.

Acquire Acceptance Letter

The very first step was to communicate with the accepting LGU, in our case, it was Guindulman, Bohol. So my father went to the municipal hall in our town, secured the required Barangay Clearance for the three of us, and then a letter of acceptance was given to him which was then sent over to the assessor's office.

It was September 2020 when we started the process. Certain personnel assisted us out by sending a digital copy of our Letter of Acceptance.

Barangay Clearance and Travel Authority

After securing the first document, my husband had to visit our local barangay office here in Cebu City to secure Barangay Clearance and Travel Authority documents. This was the hardest part as there are so many requests in the barangay that we have to wait for our turn. We requested this in September but was only granted after almost three weeks.

Every single week, I would call the barangay hotline and follow up on our requests. As per the person in charge, they will instead send us a text message once our document is ready.

However, on the second week, my husband personally visited the barangay office and was advised that our clearance and travel authority are both ready but this has to be forwarded to the City Health's office for the medical certificate but it would take another week because they have their scheduling. We asked if we could instead do the process and they agreed!

But there was a problem with our last names. Instead of Figues, the barangay officer typed it as Figures, or perhaps they had turned on the auto-correct function! So, it took another day before we could get the actual papers ourselves.

Medical Certificate

Letter of Acceptance, Barangay Clearance, and Travel Authority documents was ready. Now, my husband went to the City Health's Office for our Medical Certificate. This certificate is given to anyone who is not tested positive for COVID. As long as the names are not in the list of their COVID-positive individuals in Cebu City, then you can secure one.

My husband was able to secure the certification in less than an hour. He just gave the papers to the personnel and they got the certification printed smoothly.

Finally, all of our documents are secured, and now it's time to schedule our travel.

Provincial Endorsement

I contacted the person in charge of our LGU in Guindulman for our endorsement. The provincial office has to know every single person who's coming inside the island so upon securing all our requirements, we were told to wait for our schedule.

On October 15, 2020, the personnel contacted me and sent the manifesto from the provincial office for our schedule. It was October 16 at 8 PM, we have to take the Trans Asia ship bound to Tagbilaran City. We had a day to get our tickets.

Vehicle and Passenger Tickets with Coastal Guard Stamp

Since my husband is working, we have to instead hire someone else to get us our tickets. Another thing that we had to secure is the Coastal Guard Stamp which is required to be able to secure the tickets.

I found a travel agency over Facebook and they were so accommodating. Our vehicle and passenger tickets were delivered to us at nine in the morning on the 16th and I truly appreciate their quick and very efficient service.

Enroute Bohol

Finally, after almost a month, we were on our way to Bohol. We were early at four in the afternoon but the trip was still at eight in the evening.

Next article, I will share with you our travel and quarantine experience.

xoxo,

mommy jean of momentswithmatti

Love harder than any pain you've ever felt.