In the long view of history, the vote last Thursday by the United Nations General Assembly may come to be regarded as a belated and merely preliminary step to Palestinian statehood. But the overwhelming vote to grant Palestine the status of a nonmember observer state (the same status that the Vatican, for example, enjoys in the UN system) was greeted by jubilation in the various parts of fragmented Palestine, and seen as historic around the world.
I was born on Oct. 15, 1975 in Caibiran, Biliran. I was baptized on May 8, 1976. My father did not register my birth with the civil registrar in our province until April 1997. However, instead of writing down the correct date of my birth, the civil registrar wrote down the date of my baptism.
I had to obtain two documents from the government within the past two weeks, and the way each one is handled by the respective agencies responsible is an interesting study in contrast. Two weeks ago, my brother in Texas asked me to obtain a copy of his birth certificate. So I got on my laptop [...]
