i can't believe how much flak i've generated from what i foolishly imagined
would be taken as some very helpful advice for a few guys who are not flying on rt tickets.
the key facts are:
1 the airlines (at least cebu pacific) and i suspect all airlines are going to ask you for evidence of a rt/onward ticket before they let you board the plane.
2 in my experience the only rp airport where immigration also has a policy of asking to see such evidence is laoag (as of 9 years ago). i've flown into manilia, cebu and clark and have never been asked to show a ticket nor have i spoken to anyone else who has, nor has anyone on this forum come forward and said, "they asked me to show an onward ticket when i arrived at one of these airports." that's not to say that they would never ask anyone, i suspect that if you are travelling on an afghan or somali passport etc you may well get asked. moreover the immigration officer at laoag himself told me, yes they don't ask at the big airports, but things are different here.
how you want to deal with this is up to you. clearly for many it's not an issue as you will have bought a rt ticket in any case. for those of us without a fixed itinerary one option is to buy a eticket with an online airline and then tell them your flight number. this is likely to cost $200 but cebu pacific does have a change booking option (for a few thousand p) so that if you at least know that you will fly out on cp this money may not be completely wasted. a second option is to tell them that you have bought an eticket and tell them the flight number. this second option involves telling a lie, so if your moral scruples prevent you from telling a lie, you better pay up. (and i know what fine upstanding, never tell a porkie, pillars of the community we have in this forum)
what is the downside to option 2? if cp don't believe you they won't let you on the plane until you actually do go and buy the ticket, in which case you will be in the same position as option 1. they are not going to call the police, mark your passport etc etc, they will just give you the choice of missing your flight or really buying a rt/onward.
what's going to happen at the airport in rp? as i said the only airport where i have ever been asked for an onward ticket was laoag which at that time 9 years ago was only connected internationally by flights from china issuing paper tickets. at the other airports i've never been asked. has anyone else recently been asked?? this is probably because they get many flights in from eticket airlines so how can immigration check your story that you have an eticket on xyz? are they going to spend 30 minutes phoning up different airlines to ask about bookings for each of 200 arriving passengers arriving on a cp flight? no they are going to rely on cp to have done that work for them before departure because at least the check in staff have access to their reservation system and the vast majority of customers will be flying back on the same airline.
in the in my view extremely unlikely event that (a) they ask and (b) they try to verify your answer, my experience in laoag was that they would try to make you buy a rt flight.
i absolutely agree with econo tech that the majority of immigration staff take a rules is rules approach unlikely to be swayed by points re the national economic self interest. i have traveled extensively - around 80 countries - and had plenty of run ins with immigration over various issues, and again agree with et that it is disastrous in such circumstances to get at all confrontational or in any way disrespectful. in my experience it is best to maintain a disposition of cheerful, respectful absent mindedness. as et said these guys are generally highly officious and take themselves very seriously. i know of one guy who when stopped by kenyan immigration leaving the country was asked to hand over the approx $10 worth of kenyan currency he had on him (in the days where taking currency out of the country was not allowed.) after an increasingly hostile argument where the guy basically said words to the effect fuck you i know you are just going to pocket it took out his lighter and burned it in front of them. he was sentenced to 10 years in a kenyan jail for defacing the currency but never did get out, dieing of hiv/aids after being repeatedly gang raped. my gf at the time was responsible for monitoring east africa for an arm of the british government which is how i come to know about the story. being a "nobody" without connections to the media/journalists etc there was no campaign on his behalf to get him out and the uk government policy at the time was one of sucking up to arap moi for various reasons so they didn't want to apply any pressure.
