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The Department of Tourism (DOT) has picked popular girl group BINI as their newest ambassadors.

The group, composed of Jhoanna, Maloi, Stacey, Sheena, Gwen, Aiah, Colet, and Mikha, together with Star Magic head Lauren Dyogi, paid a courtesy call to Tourism Secretary Maria Bernardita “Dita” Angara-Mathay in Makati, recently.

The Department of Tourism (DOT) is pushing Filipinos to travel local, rolling out thousands of discounted hotel, tour, flight, and travel platform deals under its new domestic tourism campaign, “Discover More to Love.”

The DOT said more than 3,000 travel offers will be made available through their website, covering hotels, tour operators, airlines, and bundled travel experiences across the country. Among the participants is the Hotel Sales and Marketing Association (HSMA), whose member-hotels and resorts are offering discounts of up to 70%.

The campaign also includes more than 250 regional travel packages, as well as airfare promos from Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific, AirAsia Philippines, and Sunlight Air. Travel platforms AirAsia MOVE and Klook are offering their own deals, while Mastercard is providing payment perks and cardholder privileges.

MANILA, Philippines (First update; May 29, 2026; 4:44 p.m.) — A senior US State Department official has taken to X (formerly Twitter) to push back against reports that the US sought diplomatic immunity at a planned artificial intelligence hub in the Philippines.

US Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg, in a post on Monday, May 25, accused the press of distorting his earlier remarks on the Pax Silica initiative, a US-led coalition the Philippines joined in April. The planned 4,000-acre hub in New Clark City, Tarlac is its flagship project.

"We never said our goal was to maintain diplomatic immunity," Helberg wrote. "Our position has always been that markets and investors need certainty and predictability in order to deploy large pools of capital over a 5-10 year time horizon."

"That viewpoint was taken out of context and turned on its head by the press to suggest we were seeking diplomatic immunity which is patently untrue," he said.
The planned industrial hub, according to a State Department fact sheet, is "part of a broader strategy to surge production for inputs vital to U.S. supply chains."

Helberg said the agreement is "posted online for anyone to look up and read for themselves."