Number of countries that offer visa-free access to Pinoys now 66

The Philippines has climbed five spots in the latest Henley Passport Index released Wednesday by residence and citizenship planning firm Henley & Partners.

In the updated list, the Philippines went up from its previous global rank of 72 to 70, making it the seventh strongest passport in the Southeast Asia region.

This was after three more countries and territories — China, Taiwan and South Korea — gave the Philippines visa-free access, raising the number of countries that offer visa-free access to the Philippines to 66.

Below is the list of 63 other countries and territories that offer visa-free access to Philippines.

China offered visa-free travel to Hainan to 59 countries, including the Philippines, in April, while visa-free access to Taiwan was offered beginning November last year.

South Korea temporarily opened its borders for visa-free travel to the Philippines until April 2018 due to the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Meanwhile, Japan topples Singapore for world's most powerful passport

While Singapore still has the strongest passport in Southeast Asia with visa-free access to 188 countries, it now shares the status of having the second-most powerful passport in the world after Japan claimed rank 1 in the passport index by gaining visa-free access to 189 countries.

South Korea, Finland, France, Italy, Spain, and Sweden were ranked third with visa-free access to 187 countries; Austria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and United States followed in fourth place at 186 countries.

The updated 2018 Henley Passport Index "looked into the travel freedom of countries based on an authoritative database of travel information."

The latest update surveyed a total of 199 passports against 277 countries, territories, and micro-states. —KBK, GMA News