Australian repatriation: Albury man’s battle to return from Philippines

A man who has been stranded in the Philippines for a year due to COVID travel restrictions has opened up about the anxiety and financial burden he has suffered while trying to get home.

A 58-year-old Australian man has detailed his difficulties in trying to return home from the Philippines (pictured). Photo: Stock/AFP.

Stranded in the Philippines since February, 2020, Simon* and his wife just want to get home to their family in Albury.
Simon, a 58-year-old Australian man, married his wife in the Philippines on April 25, 2020, and subsequently had a flight back to Australia booked on April 30.

The Albury Wodonga News spoke with Simon over video chat on Wednesday.

Simon said for the past four to five years he had been flying back-and-forth between Australia and the Philippines every three months.

“On March 16 the Philippines declared a state of calamity, which is like a state of emergency, which shut all domestic airlines.

“Then on March 18 Scott Morrison advised people not to travel overseas and to come home to Australia if they could.

“But because of the state of calamity we weren’t able to get a domestic flight to Manila to get a flight back to Australia.”

The couple, who live in Davao, 978.5km from Manila, had their flight to Australia cancelled on April 30.

Simon said he was eager to get back to Australia to help his parents, who live on a property in Albury, after his mother’s health deteriorated.

“Our plan was to sit it out here, but my mother has dementia and other medical conditions,” he said.

“She’s in her mid-80s and my father is in his mid-90s.

“My mothers condition over the last 12 months has gotten worse and she has recently been admitted to a nursing home.

“So now I’m faced with my mother in a nursing home and my father being at home alone by himself for the first time in 60 years.”

Simon and his wife have managed to book another flight to return to Australia on March 5 this year through Air Niugini, but Simon said there were still many hoops to jump through before they could board the flight, which caused a lot of stress and anxiety.

He said unfortunately a foreign national wishing to return home to Australia wasn’t considered essential travel.

“We are now able to fly from Davao to Manila and we will stay in Manila for three days and get our 72 hour COVID tests done,” Simon said.

“The complexity of leaving the Philippines is it can take a week to get the clearances to fly domestically.

“You have to go to the police and the local council and the local health centre.

“We started that process yesterday.”

Simon said it had cost he and his wife 6.5 times the normal amount it would cost to return to Australia from the Philippines.

“For two of us it will cost $9600 including hotel quarantine. Previously it was $1400,” he said.

“I’m a self-funded retiree and we can afford it.

“But if we were to get bumped off this flight or if the Australian Government said they were banning international flights, we would probably lose $5000.

“It’s hugely stressful, anxiety is through the roof for myself and my wife.”

*Simon is a pseudonym used for the interviewee, who prefers not to have their identity revealed.