I think met on a dating site is a subset of met online.
https://ph.usembassy.gov/covid-19-and-travel-information/
Unvaccinated foreign nationals will not be allowed admission into the Philippines
So that could be it.
oh somehow I missed my pager 
while in the air.
The woman from that previous trip actually ended up not working out mostly because my trip caused a ton of drama with my business, crippling my ability to visit for a while. That could be a huge thread of its own…
I actually just got back from being in the Philippines for a month, since I’m basically retired, I have time… Met another one, Going back again in March, this ones definitely a keeper.
Neither would I. I literally just changed my OKCupid profile to Manila. A little common sense gets rid of 90% of the scammers.
One rule eliminates the vast majority of scams.
Never. send. money. EVER. No matter how good the excuse, no matter how desperate/realistic/sincere the situation may seem. Walk away.
The biggest piece of this fraud is, it is relatively rare for average Philippine citizens to be approved for a US tourist visa. Barring some pretty strong ties to home, they tend not to come back.
If he travels there and actually meets her in person, the odds of outright scam drop dramatically. As to the current state, don’t know without asking a ton of pointed questions. Details matter. Things like if she is coming from some remote area half way across the country, more suspicious as such travel can easily be outside the affordability of many, thus may be scammy. Any given person in the manila metro area can cover a lot of ground on a dollars worth of jeepney fares. Has he done video chat with her? Video chat does not eliminate all scams but it skims off the most obvious catfishing. You can learn a lot from attitude, body language, intonation.
Culture there does lean a little more conservative and superstitious. Enough so that garden variety republican voters will find a lot of political peers.