DENR Calls Support for Vigan’s Bid for Wonder City

Environment Secretary Ramon J. P. Paje has called on Filipinos across the globe to support the bid of the historic city of Vigan in Ilocos Sur to become one of the world’s new seven wonder cities.

Paje said Vigan needs the same overwhelming support that made Palawan’s Puerto Princesa Underground River (PPUR) as one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature in 2012.

Paje, who served as the national campaign manager for the PPUR, said Vigan also deserves the full backing of Filipinos all over the world.

“Vigan is worthy of all accolades and recognition as a Wonder City,” Paje pointed out.

“It has been wonderfully preserved as one of the few Hispanic towns in the country, with structures intact due to best practices in management, governance, stakeholder involvement, and awareness on cultural heritage,” he said.

Vigan City is a favorite tourist destination in Northern Philippines, famed for its unique colonial architecture lined by cobblestone streets and visited for its distinct cuisine.

It is the only Philippine town or city on the list of heritage sites declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

UNESCO has described Vigan as “the best-preserved example of a planned Spanish colonial town in Asia.”

The city’s architecture, it added, “reflects the coming together of cultural elements from elsewhere in the Philippines, from China and from Europe, resulting in a culture and townscape that have no parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia.”

It is one of more than 1,200 nominees worldwide that has been qualified and shortlisted to the first of three finalist phases. The first phase saw the official list of finalist candidates whittled down from 28 to 21 in a global voting that started on October 21, 2013 and ended on July 7, 2014.

The second round of voting will run for three months, from July 7 to October 7, 2014, where the 21 finalists will be reduced to 14. This list will further be reduced to the official list of seven winners after the final round of voting on October 7-December 7, 2014.

Paje called on the public to be more active in the voting process and campaign to help Vigan garner a spot in the New Seven Wonder Cities of the World list.

People can vote via international phone calls, online (www.new7wonders.com), or by downloading free applications on Apple or Android mobile phones. Voting via text messaging is yet to be rolled out by the organizers.

The New 7 Wonders Cities is the third campaign launched by the New 7 Wonders Foundation, after the New 7 Wonders of the World and the New 7 Wonders of Nature. According to its founder-president Bernard Weber, the campaign for cities “will be a forum for discussing everything from urban planning to metropolitan governance, from tourism to architecture. (With Press Release)

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