manila the philippines will lift the travel ban for all inbound travellers from india and nine other countries starting from september 6 despite the rising covid19 cases fuelled by the highly contagious delta variant presidential spokesperson harry roque said on saturdaypresident rodrigo duterte has approved the recommendation of the interagency covid19 task force to lift the current travel restrictions on india pakistan bangladesh sri lanka nepal the united arab emirates oman thailand malaysia and indonesia reports xinhua news agencyinternational travellers coming from the above mentioned countries shall however comply with the appropriate entry testing and quarantine protocols roque said in a statementhowever foreign tourists are still banned from entering the country except for holders of special visas such as diplomats and foreign spouses of filipino citizensthe local transmission of the delta variant has spread to communities in the philippinesthe country has detected 1789 delta cases and 33 deaths so far the world health organization confirmed the community transmission of the delta variant saying it is now the dominant covid19 strain spreading in the philippinesin april the philippines imposed a ban on india and later expanded to include the nine other countries with delta casesthe philippines is now grappling with soaring covid19 infections the southeast asian country has reported a total of 2040568 confirmed covid19 with 33873 deaths