Message from the editor

101 reasons to celebrate

THE Best of Cebu 2014 is off the press and you’re here, flipping through a 60-page list of the best that Cebu has to offer. You may be nodding in agreement, if not shaking your head, wondering, “Who came up with this list?”

To that question, well, roughly the same panel members who drafted last year’s list – Sun.Star Cebu’s top executives and editors plus a few special guests, all of whom share a common love for life and everything Cebu.

In selecting the winners, the panel aimed to be as objective as possible. And while the 2014 selection applied the rudiments of the previous year’s process, some changes were made. For one, the “blind taste test” under the Food & Drink category was more extensive: from pork chops to ribs, cheesecake to red velvet, rosquillos to otap, crispy pata to pochero, siopao to siomai, “competition” among the food nominees was intense; the process, grueling. In a way, organizing the taste test was a logistical feat. As the votes were tallied, the results were nearly unanimous: the winners, well, as far as the selection panel was concerned, are arguably Cebu’s best.

In this issue, you’ll also find a new category, the People’s Choice, with four initial winners chosen through online voting on the Sun.Star Philippines Facebook page. The rest of the winners in the other categories – Food and Drink, Beauty and Wellness, Fun and Games, Shopping, Public Facilities, Services and Hotels – were decided after much deliberation.

When the plates cleared and the selection process wrapped up, Sun.Star Weekend’s Best of Cebu 2014 yielded 101 winners in eight categories. Check them out in this special issue, and join us as we celebrate the best that Cebu has to offer.