A cave entrance to the Puerto Princessa Sub­ter­ranean National Park. Is this the next 7 Won­ders of Nature?

There is an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion about the New 7 Won­ders of Nature online poll over at one of the online com­mu­ni­ties I belong to. The dis­cus­sion began way back when the vot­ing for the 7Won­ders of Nature began; in typ­i­cal Pinoy fash­ion, most of the par­tic­i­pants in the dis­cus­sion called on all Pinoys to vote for all the Philip­pine nom­i­nees. Back then, there were four entries from the Philip­pines, to wit:

1. Puerto Princessa Sub­ter­ranean River National Park
2. Tub­bataha Reef
3. Choco­late Hills
4. Mayon Vol­cano

In case you missed the goings on, here’s a recap: the New 7 Won­ders of Nature is an online con­test ran by the same group that con­ducted the New 7 Won­ders of the World con­test. The pre­vi­ous con­test fea­tured man-made sites, while only nat­ural sites are qual­i­fied in the cur­rent poll. There are three rounds of vot­ing: the first, a “wild­card” vot­ing where any­one in the Inter­net can nom­i­nate a site (sub­ject to the nom­i­nat­ing rules), and the vot­ers pick their favorites. (This is the round that got the most press in local news web­sites.) The top 77 entries in this wild­card vote will move up to the, well, Top 77 round, which will be reviewed by a panel of experts. Only one entry per coun­try is per­mit­ted, except for multi-country sites such as the Dead Sea (which made it to the Top 77). The expert panel will then announce the 28 final­ists (on July 21, 12:07 GMT), and only then would the final vot­ing resume until 2011. The Top 7 out of 28 final­ists will then be declared as the New Seven Won­ders of Nature.

For­tu­nately, the Philip­pines’ top entry for the New 7 Won­ders of Nature, Puerto Princessa Sub­ter­ranean River National Park, made it to the Top 77. But I will not vote for Puerto Princesa…yet. If you read the pre­vi­ous para­graph well, you’ll see why: because I sim­ply can­not vote when vot­ing is closed. Read the rest of this entry »