At Pacific Island Tours have been quite upset with the U.S. State Dept and other countries for giving a sometimes negative view
on the safety issue in the Philippines. We are really angry and confused by it. Yes, the Philippines has had problems with some rebel groups, but that does not affect foreign tourists.
The problem with these rebel groups is in the extreme south of the country and will not affect you, unless for some crazy reason
you want to go sight seeing in these remote areas! It is not something new to the Philippines either. It has been going on in remote areas for years. Why there is more attention
drawn to it now is because of the world wide terrorist threat. In the U.S. there were thousands of people killed on 9/11. Does that mean that the U.S. is too dangerous to visit?
That horrible incident was not something that happens with frequency, thank God!
If you read about occasional kidnappings, again this type of activity does not affect foreign tourists. These types of activities are going on in many Asian countries to some extent.
Thailand for instance has many kidnapping incidents also and rebel activity in the north of the country that has been going on for many years. However, Thailand is a tourist mecca and has millions of tourists each year
and no one hardly hears about it, why? We are not sure either except the Thai government goes to great lengths to keep it out of the media. Cebu has no safety problem. Of course there are some areas one should not walk alone in but that is true for just about every city
on the planet. Why the U.S. and some other countries make a blanket warning about the Philippines is because the people who write these warnings have no real first hand knowledge of the Philippines and have probably never been there. Cebu City is as safe as a city its size usually is in any part of the world and we will
venture to say, safer than average. If you will do some independent research about the safety of Cebu, you will see that we are giving you an accurate picture of how it is.
