1. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a meeting of the passport policy deliberation commission’s subcommittee on passport use policy on January 23 to deliberate on whether to extend the travel bans on some areas of the Republic of the Philippines (the Zamboanga Peninsula, the Sulu archipelago, Basilan and the Tawi-Tawi Islands).

2. After the deliberation, the subcommittee, judging that there still remain risks of terrorism and kidnapping and the unstable security situation is likely to continue for a considerable period of time in the aforementioned areas of the Philippines under travel bans as of January 2019, decided to extend the travel bans on them for another six months (February 1, 2019 ~ July 31, 2019).

* unofficial translation