MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. institutionalized the country's Electronic Travel Information (eTravel) System to ensure efficiency in the conduct of border control, health surveillance, and tourism statistics analysis, and other travel-related procedures.

The President, through Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, signed Administrative Order (AO) 24 on Aug. 27, 2024 as part of the government's goal to promote transparency by adopting simplified measures to reduce red tape.

"There is a need to institutionalize the use of eTravel System as the government's one-stop electronic travel declaration system for all international inbound and outbound passengers and crew members for the purpose of ensuring efficiency in the conduct of border control, health surveillance, and tourism statistics analysis, and other travel-related procedures," the President said in his order.

The system is a digital single data collection platform for passengers arriving in and departing from the Philippines, which should be used for border control, health surveillance, and economic data analysis.

AO 24, which was released to the media on Saturday, takes effect immediately following its publication in the Official Gazette or a newspaper of general circulation.