EMONG'S JOURNALS

All men are not created equal. Sometimes, your destiny depends on where you were born. According to a recent updated survey from Henley & Partners, a London-based consulting firm that specializes in citizenship services, Philippines ranked a low 69th among the countries with visa-free privileges - way below with that of our neighboring countries Singapore's 6th and Malaysia's 9th ranking. A Philippine passport can only take you to about 58 countries as compared to Singapore's 167 and Malaysia's 163. Holders of Finnish, Swedish and UK passports are the luckiest blokes who can enjoy sight-seeing adventures in 173 countries. Afghans, however, are the least favored as their passports - ranked last at 93rd - can only take them to 28 countries. You can see the complete ranking list  HERE . Only 25 countries, or maybe even lesser When you go and Google-search which countries offer visa-free travel for Filipinos, you'd notice that results vary from one web...

STARTING January 2016, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) will be issuing the new e-passports and they will look like these: A. On the first pages of the passports (at the back of the cover), an image of the Philippine Eagle and its wings will be featured prominently. B. The third page will contain the lyrics of the National Anthem and the preamble of the 1987 Constitution. C. Inside the passport, the visa pages will display famous landmarks of the Philippine regions such as the Metro Manila skyline, the Mayon Volcano of Bicol, the Ifugao Rice Terraces of the Cordillera Administrative Region, among others. Aside from these new designs, the 2016 passport will also have innovative security features such as: the use of a latent image which would be visible only when the document is viewed at a certain angle ultraviolet ink only visible under UV light  watermark the use of a different security background design for every visa page to prevent VISA p...