Since October 11, 68 countries have been allowed to enter Japan on a short-term visa waiver basis.
Perhaps seeing this news, my wife asked me why the Philippines was not a visa waiver country.Is it because the Philippines is a poor country?
I was at a loss for an answer.
I had thought that Southeast Asian countries basically required visas even for short periods of time, but when I checked, I found that Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, and Indonesia are visa exempt, although there are differences in conditions and length of stay.
It appears that Thailand and Malaysia became visa free countries in 2013 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of ASEAN.
Not sure why the Philippines was not included at that time.
Visa exemptions are basically reciprocal, so that if one country exempts a visitor, the other country should also exempt the visitor. However, countries that wish to receive a large number of tourists are exempt from visa requirements without being bound by reciprocity.
A Japanese passport holder can travel to 193 countries and regions visa-free. 193 is the largest number in the world, and the Japanese passport is said to be the most powerful in the world.
The Philippines, on the other hand, has 66 countries, which is not a small number, but about the middle of the ASEAN countries.
The conditions for visa waiver are said to be friendly relations between countries, as well as the fact that people enter the country as tourists and spend money, and the fact that people from the waiver countries are unlikely to become immigrants.
Since the Philippines is a country that encourages foreign workers to go abroad as part of its national policy, it is probably difficult for them to be exempted from visa requirements.
The largest number of illegal immigrants in Japan are Koreans (11,600 or so), followed by Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese (7,000 to 8,000). Filipinos number 5,000, less than half the number of Koreans.
Both South Korea and Thailand are visa-exempt countries.
The Philippines' economic development has been spectacular, and the middle class is growing rapidly. The increase in housing prices in the Manila metropolitan area and the Cebu metropolitan area is astonishing, and is the same or even higher than in Japan's provincial cities.
Many Filipinos visit Japan as tourists, with 613,114 in 2019 before Corona, more than triple the number in 2014, five years earlier. Without Corona, the number would be close to 1 million per year.
Ambassador Maileen Garcia Albano, the first woman to be posted to Japan, has said that she will lobby the Japanese government to waive visas for Filipinos, so it will not be long before they are waived.
If visa waiver is granted, I would like to invite my children to Japan and take them to Disneyland and many other places.
