Panagbenga's 16th Season of blossoming

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – Hundreds of trippers and spectators witnessed this year’s Panagbenga Festival, which featured, among others, the inimitable cultural dance of Cordillera natives and various flowers from the highlands. Watch full video

Highlighting Baguio’s monthlong flower festival is the grand float parade, which showcased all sorts of flowers of the city. The Year of the Rabbit was the theme of this year's Panagbenga. One of the floats that stood out was a huge carnation rabbit surrounded by giant mushrooms and fairies with skirts made of white flowers. Male fairies, on the other hand, were adorned with anthurium leaves.

Photo by Rafael Philip Ocampo

Next is the Avatar-inspired float, which carried the theme “The Environment and Community in Harmony.” Complete with sounds and water effects, it made an impact because of its animatronics approach with the orange-winged flying dragon (Avatar’s Toruk Makto). But I think it could have been more impressive had it been decorated with more flowers.

Children were also wowed by the bee mascot that came out of the yellow chrysanthemum beehive. There were also rainbow-colored floats, butterflies, a man riding on a red motorcycle, and beer bottles made from Everlasting. Everlasting flower or paper daisy symbolizes Baguio as the “Summer Capital of the Philippines.” The flower is also famous among devotees because of its long life, making it ideal for decorating altars.

A total of 26 floats were showcased during the event. Celebrities Empoy, JC de Vera, Empress Shuck and Enchong Dee were also present to the delight of the crowd. Comfortably sitting in his garden of flowers was Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim, who also joined the parade.

Street dancing also added spice to the festival. One group dished out a performance inspired by the highly popular game Plants vs. Zombies. Dancers dressed as cops stirred the audience with their suave moves.

Marching bands and majorettes batons also their played in entertaining the crowd, dancing to the throbbing beats of the gong and drums.

Three people collapsed during the street dancing competition, but fortunately, medics were around to attend to them. Despite this and the gridlock traffic the festival caused, this year's Panagbenga was  generally successful.