PUERTO PRINCESA CITY — The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, the country’s single remaining entry in a web-based search for the seven new natural wonders of the world, has made it to the semifinal round of the ongoing selection process.

New7Wonders Foundation, the Switzerland-based organizer of the campaign, announced the 77 semifinal winners that made it on Thursday, after a year of e-mail-based voting where over one billion votes were cast on the Internet.

An international panel of experts will evaluate the remaining 77 sites and will select the 28 finalists to be announced on July 21 based on a set of criteria set by the organizers at the New7Wonders Foundation headquarters in Zurich.

A final round of Internet voting will then be held for another year until the seven winners are named in 2011.

Mayor confident

Puerto Princesa City Mayor Edward S. Hagedorn said the city government, which has launched a full-blown campaign to solicit votes for the country’s lone entry, is confident they will make it to the list of 28 finalists.

“I’m really pleased that we made it this far, even with little support from the national government, considering that we were competing with entries like the Amazon forest which is being supported by at least five countries,” he added.

The underground river, a cave complex that features a 2-kilometer navigable route underneath a limestone formation, has attracted hundreds of thousands of local and foreign visitors, particularly during the past two years when it was first nominated as one of the country’s several entries in the global voting campaign.

It topped the first phase of the selection process during the first year of the campaign, that involved over 400 entries from all over the world, leading other previous Philippine nominees including the Tubbataha Reef, Bohol’s Chocolate Hills, Mayon Volcano and several other entries.

Top 77

Also in the top 77 entries are popular natural attractions such as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Brazil’s Amazon forest, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA and Mt. Olympus in Greece, among others.

Organizers, however, noted that the seminal has included many places that are less known to the public.

“Unlike the campaign that chose the Official New 7 Wonders of the World, in which a majority of the participating monuments were universally known and recognized, there are many spectacular sites in the Official New7Wonders of Nature Top 77 that are not well-known outside their country or region. The success of lesser-known locations shows that an important New7Wonders goal in this campaign is being achieved—broadening the horizons of the voting public around the world, thus helping us all better appreciate the diversity of our planet,” New7Wonders President Bernard Weber said in a statement.

The criteria for the final selection will include: unique beauty of the nominated site; diversity and distribution across and among the different site categories, including landscapes, ice formations, islands, mountains, volcanoes, caves, rock formations, valleys, forests, national parks, nature reserves, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, and seascapes; ecological significance; historical legacy and geo-location.