Transporting Lady Arwen, a Devon Rex Cat, from Vietnam to the Philippines (SGN – MNL)

Lady Arwen of Brobdingnagtat is a three-year-old Devon Rex with a chocolate-and-white tortie coat — a name built for a giant, on one of the smallest pedigree cat breeds there is. In September 2026, her family flew her home from Ho Chi Minh City to Manila on a route that Vietnam-to-Philippines pet shipping treats as more forgiving than most: no rabies titer test, no blood sample sent overseas, just a vaccination record and a permit that had to be timed exactly right. This case study documents Lady Arwen’s real file — the microchip and vaccine history, the 60-day SPS Import Clearance, the export certificate issued at Tan Son Nhat, and the codeshare flight that got her home.

Meet Lady Arwen, and the Name on the Wrong Document

Lady Arwen was born on 21 May 2023 and was 39 months old by the time she flew, well past the Philippines’ four-month minimum entry age for cats — age was never a variable in this file. What is unusual is whose name is on it. Lady Arwen’s owner, according to her pet booklet, is Irene Rose Umayam of Pasig City. But her Philippine SPS Import Clearance and her Vietnam export certificate both list the importer and exporter as Violeta Umayam, the family member she travelled with. That kind of mismatch between “who owns the pet” and “whose name is on the paperwork” is common in family relocations — the two documents still have to agree with each other on every other point, from the microchip number down to the vaccination date, even when the named person changes.

Building the File: One Microchip, Two Rabies Shots, No Titer Test

Every Philippines-bound file starts the same way: a scannable ISO microchip matched against every document before a single vaccine goes in the record. Lady Arwen’s chip — 900 219 001 585 841 — appears identically on her pet booklet, her SPS Import Clearance, and her Vietnam export certificate. Her rabies coverage came in two rounds: a first CANVAC R dose on 17 October 2023, valid for one year, and a booster on 23 September 2025 that stayed valid through 23 September 2026 — bracketing her actual travel date with a year of margin rather than weeks. Her core feline vaccine and a Bravecto-and-praziquantel deworming treatment, given 7 July 2026 and valid through 7 October 2026, rounded out the medical side of the file.

None of that required a blood draw. Unlike destinations that demand a laboratory-confirmed rabies antibody titer before a permit application is even considered, Philippine import rules for pets arriving from Vietnam accept the vaccination record on its own — which is what let Lady Arwen’s file move straight from vaccine booklet to permit application, with no lab turnaround time to plan around.

A 60-Day SPS Clearance Timed to the Flight

The Bureau of Animal Industry issued Lady Arwen’s SPS Import Clearance — number ICDABAIQ10926184574 — in Quezon City on 23 August 2026, ten days before her flight, naming Violeta Umayam as importer and a quarantine address in Sta. Rosa City, Laguna, as the final destination. The permit carried a 60-day shipping window, with the document itself stating a ship-out deadline of 22 October 2026 — a two-month runway rather than a single fixed flight date to hit. Lady Arwen flew on day ten of sixty, with weeks of slack left if the trip had needed to shift.

The Export Certificate at Tan Son Nhat

On the Vietnam side, the Tan Son Nhat Airport Animal Quarantine Station issued Animal Health Certificate for Export No. 001899/CN-KDDVXK on 28 August 2026, four days before departure. It records the same microchip number as every other document in the file, confirms no clinical signs of disease on the day of shipment, and cites the 23 September 2025 rabies vaccination as the basis for clearance — the same date anchoring her SPS Import Clearance on the Philippine side. It’s also where a mismatched date or a mistyped microchip number would surface first, before either country’s paperwork could go any further.

Flying Home on the Same Ticket

Lady Arwen didn’t fly as unaccompanied cargo. Irene and Violeta booked her on the same Vietnam Airlines–Philippine Airlines codeshare they were flying themselves — VN3942/PR598, departing Tan Son Nhat at 3:35 PM on 2 September 2026 and landing in Manila at 7:25 PM local time. That’s the profile most small cats travel under on this route: checked alongside an owner on the same ticket, rather than booked through a separate cargo process.

Home in Manila

By the time Lady Arwen’s crate opened at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, her file had passed through a Vietnamese quarantine station, a Philippine government bureau, and one codeshare booking — all inside a single itinerary the family had booked for themselves. A Devon Rex named after a land of giants flew home the same afternoon her owners did, on a route that never asked her paperwork for more than it already had: a microchip, two rabies shots, a 60-day clearance, and an export certificate dated inside the window.