Boracay grabs 3 major Prizes at Travel+Leisure awards in New York

Discovery Shores Boracay was voted Asia's Top Hotel . Spa at the Travel+Leisure Magazine's World's Best . Awards 2012.

1. World's Best Overall Island
2. Asia's Top Island
3. Asia's Top Hotel Spa

The Philippines walked away with three major awards at the Travel+Leisure Magazine's World's Best Awards 2012 held at the newly opened Conrad Flagship Hotel in New York on July 19, 2012.

Chosen by readers of the travel publication, this year's awardees included Boracay Island, which was voted World's Best Overall Island and Asia's Top Island.

One of the top hotels in the island, Discovery Shores, Boracay, meanwhile, was voted Asia's Top Hotel Spa.

The winners were announced earlier by the magazine's editor Nilou Motamed on the US morning TV show, "Today," on July 6, 2012.

Vernie Velarde-Morales, tourism representative of the Department of Tourism (DOT) office in Chicago and concurrent officer-in-charge of the DOT office in New York, and Abigail Yap, the wife of Malay Mayor John Yap received the awards in behalf of Boracay.

Discovery Shores general manager Jose C. Parreño accepted the award for the hotel

The awarding ceremony was also attended by Deputy Consul General Theresa Dizon-de Vega, Filipino Reporter publisher Bert Pelayo, Fairways and Blue Waters Resort, Boracay chairman Wilbur Chan, Discover Suites resident manager David Pardo de Ayala, and Filipino-American entrepreneur and former President of the Aklan Association in the US Northeast Ray Rogan.

Filipino-American special projects editor of Travel+Leisure Irene Edwards was also at the event.

The awards were handed out by Travel+Leisure Magazine editor-in-chief Nancy Novogrod and the magazine's vice president and publisher Jean-Paul Kyrillos

Other major winners included Red Mountain Resort, Ivins, Utah (Top Destination Spa), Singita Grumeti Reserves, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania (Top Hotel), Bangkok (Top City), Singapore Airlines (Top International Airline), and Virgin America (Top Domestic Airline).

The World's Best Awards, now on its 17th year, is an annual tribute to the world destinations, hotels, resorts, tour operators, cruise lines, airlines, and other major tourist services which have been voted by readers of the magazine as being the best in the world.

According to Novogrod, for the 2012 awards, an unprecedented number of the magazine's readers cast their votes for their favorite travel destinations.

She also said the awards for Boracay and Discovery Shores were both well-deserved and speak volumes about the lasting positive impressions made by these Philippine destinations.

Discovery Shores also ranked No. 5 on the list of top 100 hotels in the world and No. 2 among the top resorts in Asia.

"This is an affirmation of our unwavering commitment to giving our guests unmatched service standards complemented by our dedicated staff and our world-class facilities," Parreño said in a statement.

ABS-CBN News

Continue reading

Farmer stumbles across suspected NPA mass graves of 30 skulls in Quezon

Discovered 30 skulls in Luzon

A Philippine farmer unearthed a mass grave with the skeletal remains of up to 30 people believed to be victims of an internal purge by communist rebels in the 1980s, the army said on Sunday.

Rommel Malinao was ploughing his field in a remote village in Quezon province, southeast of Manila, when he made the discovery on Saturday, army spokesman Major Harold Cabunoc said.

The army deployed a team to cordon off the site and with the help of police forensics experts exhumed the skeletons.

"As of last count, there were about 30 human skeletons," Cabunoc told AFP.

"We believe these were victims of the New People's Army (NPA) 'kangaroo courts', which sentenced to death many members they had suspected as government intelligence agents."

The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which has been waging a Maoist rebellion since 1969 -- one of the longest-running communist insurgencies in Asia.

At its peak in the 1980s, NPA numbers were believed to have reached 26,000, but that is now down to only 4,000 fighters due to losses on the battle field.

The government alleges that in the mid-1980s, the NPA set up so-called 'kangaroo courts', which condemned to death hundreds believed to have become agents for the state.

Their bodies were believed to have been dumped in secret mass graves.

Various mass graves have been unearthed by the military since 2009, but Saturday's find was believed to contain the biggest number of skeletons so far, Cabunoc said.

Cabunoc added that villagers interviewed by the army near the site said many of their relatives whom they had suspected of joining the NPA went missing in the 1980s and had not been heard of since.

Some of the skeletons showed the hallmarks of torture, although further verification was needed, he said.

New People's Army (NPA) rebels are seen in 2009. A Philippine farmer unearthed a mass grave with the skeletal remains of up to 30 people believed to be victims of an internal purge by communist rebels in the 1980s, the army said on Sunday.

President Benigno Aquino re-opened peace talks with the communists in February last year but the negotiations have been delayed by the rebels' demand to release detained comrades.

It was not immediately clear how the discovery of the latest mass grave could affect the talks.

Continue reading