Chocolate Hills Is Back On Track

After going missing under mysterious circumstances, Bohol's pride, the Chocolate Hills, is back in the Top 10 (down 3 notches from 6 to 9) in the ongoing quest for the New 7 Wonders of Nature. When it went missing from the list a couple of weeks ago, lots of Bol-anons wanting to vote for the famous hills were asking what has happened. The good governor and the 1st district congressman also got involved and queried several organisations, including the organisers themselves (New7Wonders Foundation), on why Chocolate Hills was taken off from the list.

I tried to dig out possible reasons in the web and came across the story of the delisting of Ha Long Bay, still on top of the list at the moment, which is found in Vietnam. I found it from the Press section of the organiser's website (http://www.new7wonders.com/). The news story cited the reason for its delisting as the infringement of the organiser's copyrights. Apparently, some of the bay's supporters have used, for commercial purposes, contents from the organiser's website without its expressed permission. The bay's main organising committee had acted positively on the New7Wonders Foundation's demand for their supporters to stop these acts. Since then Ha Long Bay is back on the list.

After reading Ha Long Bay's story, I thought something similar might have happened to our Chocolate Hills. It is not, and the reason for its delisting was that it has no Official Supporting Committee (OSC) set up. I am outraged to find this out, to say the least! What were all those press releases to support the hills all about? They even came out in the organiser's website. It was mind numbing to know that nobody thought about filling in a one-page form to set up the OSC. This is supposed to be a basic requirement as set out in the nomination process!

All is well now that Chocolate Hills is back on the list and still sitting in the Top 10. But, at a cost! We are at no. 9, the reason being that when the hills were out for a week the Filipino people were voting for Tubbataha Reefs and the newcomer Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park. There is a positive side here though, as that unfortunate week helped the newcomer a lot. Now there are three natural wonders from the Philippines that are in the Top 77.

Lessons must be learnt still from this daft error. There might be similar campaigns in the future wherein we can tell the world that we have great natural wonders in Bohol and the Philippines in general. The journey towards being named as one of New 7 Wonders of Nature is still long. Bol-anons unite! This is essentially a popularity contest and we are up against much bigger nations with much larger populations. Strategy-wise, it may help the newly set up OSC to read on the voting analysis on the results from the first campaign. It may help in this campaign.

Ahong awhag sa tanang Bol-anon sa tibuok kalibutan, botohan ta sa way pagduha-duha and Chocolate Hills para mamahimung usa sa New 7 Wonders of Nature! Ajaw usab kalimti pagbotar sa Tubbataha Reefs ug sa Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park. Pwede gani diay nga ang imong botohan puro mag-gikan sa Asia.

Ako, inubanan sa akong kapikas sa kinabuhi ug kaparyentihan, ning-boto na (hagbahay pa), kamo?

Vote for Chocolate Hills

Bohol's world-famous natural heritage, the Chocolate Hills, has been nominated to the New 7 Wonders of Nature campaign. This campaign is organised by the non-profit New7Wonders Foundation after the resounding success of its New 7 Wonders of the World campaign.

As a native Bol-anon I have been to Chocolate Hills many times. In fact, I still have pictures on my first visit as a pre-schooler. My recent visit was last year when me and my family went home for a holiday. It never failed to amaze me just looking at those thousands of hills stretched as far as your eyes can see. I once went to nearby Sagbayan where some of the Hills are also located. On a ride to an interior barangay in a habal-habal, I passed by some miniature Chocolate Hills! Well, it looks like it and with a little imagination it can be made into a miniature tourist attraction.

I have already voted for Chocolate Hills as my first choice and Tubbataha Reef (off Sulu Sea) as my second choice. As a scuba diver who once dabbled in marine conservation I love the coral reefs. Aside from the world-famous hills, Bohol is also famous for its beaches, coral reefs, cave formations and rivers among other natural heritage sites.

Site Description

The New7Wonders website (http://www.new7wonders.com/) describes Chocolate Hills as:

The Chocolate Hills is an unusual geological formation in Bohol, Philippines. It is composed of around 1,268 perfectly cone-shaped hills, all about the same size, spread over an area of more than 50 sq km The hills are covered in green grass that turns brown during the dry season, giving them the name "Chocolate Hills."

A more comprehensive description of the Chocolate Hills can be found in Wikipedia.

Legends

There are two famous legends about the formation of Chocolate Hills: (1) Arogo and Aloya love story, and (2) the two fighting giants.

In the love story, Arogo is a yound giant who fell in love with a mortal girl named Aloya. When Aloya died, Arogo was driven by grief to cry bitterly. His tears turned into hills when they touched the ground as a lasting proof of his grief.

As to the fighting giants, it went on for days and they threw stones and sand at each other. When they were finally exhausted, they reconciled and left the mess they made behind.

These two stories were adapted from the Bohol Chronicle news article about this campaign. I have to admit I am not familiar with the love story legend; however, I did knew about the fighting giants when I was a child.

Vote now

Please add your vote to our beloved Chocolate Hills in order to ensure it is eligible for shortlisting in the second stage. Voting will continue through 31 December 2008. If you want to vote now click here.

Bohol's premier newspaper, The Bohol Chronicle, is spearheading the campaign in Bohol so if you want to know about it click here. I am doing my bit independently as I have read about this campaign elsewhere, weeks before the paper's campaign.

You can help gather more votes by spreading the word. If you have a blog, you can bookmark (I use Digg) this post and blog it so that your friends and subscribers alike will know. On this blog, you will find social bookmark links on the left side just below ClustrMaps and titled Share This. If you have social networking accounts or e-mail groups you can post a shoutout/bulletin or send an e-mail with a link to this post.