Gov. Arthur Yap has issued Executive Order (EO) 52-A that temporarily allows acceptance of vaccination cards issued by Bohol local government units (LGU) and other documents as entry requirements into Bohol.

The new EO, temporarily, amends EO 52, which removes the need of a negative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test result as entry requirement for fully vaccinated individuals.

The new EO allows a fully vaccinated individual who wishes to return to Bohol to present his/her vaccination card, a valid govt. issued ID, and an S-Pass.

The vaccination card should be authenticated and issued by any LGU in Bohol, according to the EO.

The EO further states that the new rules will take effect on Oct. 24, 2021 until Nov. 30, 2021.

The earlier EO, EO 52, remains in effect, and will be enforced starting December 2021, according to the governor.

The Issuance of the new EO comes at the wake of numerous reports of unsuccessful attempts of individuals especially Boholanos who wish to return to Bohol to secure and generate vaccination certificates from Department of Health (DOH) website vaxcert.doh.gov.ph.

The EO states that, “upon immediate verification with the concerned and relevant government agencies, the undersigned [the governor] learned that there are still considerable vaccination data/records which are yet to be encoded and uploaded by the local government units (LGUs) in the said DOH website. Because of the fact that local government units around the country have yet to fully transmit vaccination data to the DOH due to lack of technical manpower, there are individuals whose vaccination records could not be found in the said website.”

The new EO allows “ample time for the Bohol LGUs to encode and upload vaccination records in the vaxcert.doh.gov.ph portal.”

It is also mentioned in the EO that “ from December 1, 2021 onwards a vaccination certificate will already be required for all travelers.”

“However, the foregoing should remain as an exception rather than the general rule and all other travelers should secure vaccination certificates from vaxcert.doh.gov.ph as required by relevant [Inter Agency Task Force] IATF Resolutions.”

“Concerned travelers who will present their vaccination cards issued in the Province of Bohol because they could not generate their vaccination certificates shall present the acknowledgment notices or a copy/screenshot from vaxcert.doh.gov.ph that their records could not be found and that they already made such requests for their vaccination certificates,” the new EO states further.