Baguio kicks off month-long Panagbenga festival

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines - Already on its 18th year,  the annual Baguio Flower Festival, locally known as “Panagbenga” (A Time To Bloom) opens Friday morning with a grand parade to start the month-long celebrations.

Drum and lyre and dance competition among the city’s school children, all swaying to the beat of the famous Panagbenga hymn with the local Ibaloi “Bendian” dance, kick off festivities that have drawn millions of revelers around the country to this mountain resort city.

To jumpstart  the “blooming flower season” with a bang, the Market Encounter and landscaping competition open at Burnham Park and would last until March 3.

Themed: “A Blooming Odyssey,” Panagbenga’s 18th year is expected to be well-attended by Baguio’s sister cities, both local and foreign. Executives from the sister cities of Vaughn, Canada and Hanyu, Japan, including those in long-time sister city Vallejo, California have committed to join the “flowering festivities” with Baguio residents and tourists alike, especially the much-awaited grand street dancing parade on Feb. 23 and the grand float parade the next day.

To excite further flower lovers, a 100x200-foot Panagbenga logo decorated mostly with flowers will be on display at the Athletic Bowl starting Friday until the end of the festival, said Amboy Guevarra of the executive committee of the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation, Inc., co-organizer of the private-initiated but government-supported festival.

According to the Baguio Tourism Council, this time around, with the still lingering excitement on Baguio’s dipping bone-tingling temperature between 10-13 degrees Celsius, the city might just be luring millions more visitors.

The twin street dancing and float parades usually lures a million people queing along Baguio streets for two days to revel with street dancers and floats.