Opinion-Editorial NEWS

Why should passport holders seeking to renew their old passports be required to present their birth certificates when this was never done before?

The world saw a peaceful transition to 2019 last Tuesday, with fireworks lighting up the night skies in many cities as midnight ended the old year. The Line Islands south of Hawaii
along with the eastern tip of Russia’s Siberia were the first to greet 2019, lying just west of the International Date Line.

For years, fatalities in our storms and typhoons were mostly drowning victims, people crushed to death by falling trees, and fishermen and boat passengers carried out to sea. In 2013, super-typhoon Yolanda brought a new threat to life in storm-hit areas – the storm surge, a wall of seawater six to eight feet high surging inland destroying everything in its path, then sweeping
back to sea with the bodies of thousands of drowning victims.

In an ideal world, there would be no need for a “world policeman” to keep things in order. Nations would concentrate on developing themselves, stay within their borders, and respect the rights of other nations.

This first week of the year, people are wondering what to expect in the matter of fuel prices. Will the pump prices in gasoline stations start rising now as the government starts collecting a new tax increase of P2.24 per liter? Or will the companies defer charging the higher rates until about 15 to 30 days from now, when their old stocks run out?

It was in 1987 that United States President Ronald Reagan visited the divided city of Berlin, Germany, at the height of the Cold War and viewed the wall that Communist East Germany had built to keep its people from fleeing to freedom in the West. Speaking at the Brandenburg Gate, Reagan delivered what became his famous call to Soviet Russia’s Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. “Mr. Gorbachev,” he said. “Tear down this wall!”