L-R: SEAIR President Avelino Zapanta, SEAIR COO Patrick Tan, SEAIR guests and suppliers Ms. Elsa Santos and Mr. Rico Santos of Job1Global, Father Victor Apacible, Batanes Congresswoman Hon. Henedina Abad, Congressional Chief of Staff Walter Estamo, and SEAIR Vice-President for Operations Capt. Adelberto Yap

Due to the growing market of Batanes, South East Asian Airlines has added a new Dornier 328 to its fleet. Props to SEAIR for helping develop Batanes as a major tourist destination.

Batanes is the only Philippine province that experiences four seasons (Autumn in September to November, Winter in December to February, Spring in March to May and Summer in June to August. Currently, SEAIR flies up to three times daily to Batanes until June.

For more information on SEAIR flights and promos, go to www.FlySeair.com and join our Facebook Fan page at http://www.facebook.com/flyseair. For flight packages, please call +632-843-7304 or +632-840-2803.

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New administration, new Philippine Peso bills. The Central Bank of the Philippines has just released the newest Philippine bank notes and people can already exchange their current bills to these new ones beginning next week (Dec 20, 2010 onwards). The current bills can still be used for 3 years. The reason for creating new Philippine Peso bills, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is that counterfeiters have already perfected our current bills.

In my opinion, the designs were very modern and it features top tourist destinations and Philippine animals at the back of each bill. Previously, the Banaue Rice Terraces was at the back of the 1000 Peso bill, now it’s at the 20 Peso bill. Other travel destinations are:  50 Peso bill with Taal Volcano of Batangas, 100 Peso Bill with Mayon Volcano of Albay, 200 Peso Bill with the Chocolate Hills of Bohol, 500 Peso bill with Subterranean River of Puerto Princesa and the Tubbataha Reefs of Sulu Sea.

Benigno Aquino Sr. is now with the former President Corazon Aquino in the new 500 Peso bill.

In my opinion, the new Philippine Peso bills look very modern. I believe it’s about time that we change our bills. Plus, there are new security features that were added. The new security features that were added/updated were:

• Rougher embossed prints
• Serial numbers are now increasing in size
• Random red and blue security fibers
• Watermark of the portrait the numerical figure
• See through watermark of “Pilipino” in Baybayin language
• Concealed value that is superimposed at the upper left at the front of the bill – this becomes obvious when tilted 45 degrees
• Security thread that changes from red to green
  • only in 100 and above bills: the front bears the word BSP*** (denomination i.e. BSP500), at the back bears the word BSP — both are in repeated series
• Optically Variable Difference – only in 500 and 1000 bills
  • reflective foil that shows the difference in the featured animal and a small BSP logo
  • the image becomes red to green when rotated at 90 degrees.
• Optically Variable Ink – only in 1000 bill
  • the embossed 1000 becomes green to blue when looking at it in different angles

So for those who will be traveling to the Philippines starting this December until next year, you will most likely be getting these new bills. As for us Filipinos who live here, time for us to change our current bills into these new ones!

Visit the website of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to view the descriptions for each bill.

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The Department of Tourism launched the re-branding the tourism campaign for the Philippines last night. Basically the DOT want to depart from the “WOW Philippines” marketing plan and possibly make it to “Pilipinas Kay Ganda”. The whole marketing plan is still not final yet and still open to fine tuning. I’ve been hearing this from my social network and initially, me thinks it’s mehh. I went to the launch the other night to see it for myself.

The DOT feels that this is a radical change compared to other Asian countries who are already using ownership of English words i.e. Malaysia: Truly Asia, Incredible India, Amazing Thailand, Your Singapore, Charming Vietnam, etc… DOT Undersecretary Romano III says that “using our own native name and the local vernacular to express our national pride and tell our story in our way to make it rise above the competition”. Yes it’s true, we’re being radical here by using our own language in promoting the Philippines, no problem with that. I think that it’s actually a good idea but it seems that “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” does not give the “ummph” to the locals moreover to the international community.  A lot of people actually think that it sounds like a game show, something like “Pilipinas, Game Ka Na Ba?”.

Why not just build on the WOW Philippines brand? Well, according to DOT Secretary Lim’s speech, he says that “At a time when every nation, big or small, is either creating a new brand or repacking their current ones, would you rather rehash an 8 year old brand? Besides, a new brand always generates a buzz that translate to more media mileage for the same promotional budget”. Oh come on, “WOW Philippines” was a great tagline.

After the speeches, the guests were asked to move towards the bay side to watch the video and as expected, the background music was Ryan Cayabyab’s “Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika” with altered lyrics. The verses were in English but the chorus remained in Filipino. There’s a translation of Filipino lyrics to English while the Tarsier turns every page. The video was 3d animation, we were even asked to wear our 3d glasses. No offense to my ex-boss (saw him during the event, his company was responsible for the 3d animation of that video) but it seems that the video didn’t translate “Pilipinas Kay Ganda”. Then after viewing the video, there was a short fireworks display and kaboom! The new brand was shown, hence, the photo above. The choir sang the chorus to the tune of “Kay Ganda ng ating Musika” with these lyrics “Kay ganda ng Pilipinas, kay ganda ng Pilipinas. Likas sa amin, ang handong namin.”

Vice President Jejomar Binay graced the occasion, didn’t realize that he was behind us when we were watching the choir sing. I wonder how he feels with this rebranding?

The new website to access is www.beautifulpilipinas.com, be careful not to type in beautifulFILIPINAS, it will lead you to a p*rn website. We might attract unwanted visitors to the Philippines. As of this moment, the new website is not accessible.

How about you, what do you think of “Pilipinas Kay Ganda”? What can you suggest as the tagline for Philippine Tourism?

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Awesome Philippines is a project spearheaded by the Department of Tourism Secretary Ace Durano. Using social media as a means to promote the RP tourism was not only demonstrated here. You can take a look at the Facebook Pages. I recall that Boracay page in Facebook has a lot of fans. You remember that HappySlip visited the Philippines and the videos that were taken during her trip here in the Philippines. You’ll get to see her in the videos that you can use in creating remixes.

So what are you waiting for? Go to awesomephilippines.com and start creating your holiday remix. This gives you a chance to win a free vacation in the Philippines. Plus, creating a video remix in a way helps the promotion of RP tourism. So, if you have a blog, you can also embed your video remix there.

And for those who are into Second Life, please do watch out for a virtual tour/game of the Philippines. By the way, I got to see the beta of this one but you still have to know that the way the virtual paradise was structured is not really realistic in terms of geographical locations. But at least it would give you an overview and information about the famous destinations in the Philippines.

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