Vigan City Makes it to the Final Round of Wonders Cities

San Fernando (PIA) – Vigan City has made it to the final round of the New7 wonders cities global race.

Moments after Bernard Weber, founder-president of New7Wonders, announced the Top 14 cities that made to it to the world race at 7pm GMT on October 7 (1 am, October 8 Philippine time), droves of support from ntetizens flooded Vigan’s campaign page on Facebook egging the city to secure its Top 7 spot which will be announced on December 7.

Vigan tourism officer Edgardo de la Cruz said the road to the final cut in December is no walk in the park.

“The selection is lean and mean. Vigan is up against the biggest cities of the world,” de la Cruz said in a phone interview.

He said Vigan Mayor Medina has been up all morning responding to congratulatory messages and thanked Filipinos here and abroad for supporting Vigan’s bid to the New7 world cities.

De La Cruz said they had no means to monitor where the votes for Vigan were coming from.

“We firmly believe since the Philippines is the world’s texting capital, text-votes from Filipinos have helped us to the final round,” he said.

He added even organizers do not divulge the cities’ ranking when they announce who made it to the next round.

He said Vigan was always the last from the roll because winners are announced in alphabetical order.

He cited that Vigan is always assigned with the last number-code in the international phone voting but this seemed to have never worked to the city’s disadvantage.

“From code 28 (the initial number assigned in the previous round), we always get the last number but we make it to the next round nonetheless,” he added.

De La Cruz said Vigan’s multi-media platform campaign also helped draw more votes for the city.

He said Vigan, being the smallest city in the final cut, faces the challenge of competing against huge opponents.

“But we are confident in the Filipinos’ support. They have supported us from the beginning and they will support us all the way to the final round,” he said.

Race organizers said voting in the final round will now continue across a range of platforms: such as dedicated iPhone and Android apps, international telephone voting line and via national SMS.

The 14 official finalists in New7Wonders Cities are: Barcelona (Spain), Beirut (Lebanon), Chicago (United States), Doha (Qatar), Durban (South Africa), Havana (Cuba), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), La Paz (Bolivia), London (United Kingdom), Mexico City (Mexico), Perth (Australia), Quito (Ecuador), Reykjavik (Iceland) and Vigan (Philippines). (MCA/PIA1-La Union)