TRAILS UP NORTH

The 13th Baguio flower festival
GLORIA A. TUAZON

It was a dreary morning when the parades happened. The street dancing of Feb. 23 was better in a way that the weather was cooler and the sun was not that hot to the real downpour on the float parade of Feb. 24th. At least it made things easier for the little schoolchildren who participated in the street dancing competition. And so they came in droves, all clad in the colors of life. A leaf here, a branch there and flowers everywhere.

I was wondering, where did the once native-themed costumes and portrayal of native traditions go? We saw a handful, and a few rendition of gongs and "tayaws" but everything were mostly alien. It was indeed alive with everything imaginative the brain could conceive of. But to myself, I was trying to grasp where Baguio was in the set-up. "Panagbenga" is an Ibaloi term to mean, the season of bloom.

The blooming of everything good, the flowers, the plants, the people, and of hope. And as congested as Baguio City is now, we needed the blooms, and a lot of hope. If we were to derive the essence of the festival from just the term "to bloom" then it was okay that everything was of colors, of imaginations, of flowers, of pretty faces and smart dancing. Or was it? Maybe it was the Baguio girl in me wondering, this hard core soul that was born and raised in this once lovely, friendly cramped up space of a city.

Searching for the essence of the place in a festival is a lost cause, a festival being a creation of sorts to gather people to enjoy. But then again was it not that the purpose was to let people know what exactly the place is made off, what sort of people and traditions and spirits made it what it was? And that was what bothered me. Baguio was gone, in its place was a masquerade of bright and modern concepts. All too much that very little of the original was left.

And then the rain came, maybe like the spirits of the those people who appreciated what used to be and understand "change" to a limit, it expressed grief to the daunting fact that a good thing is slowly slipping away.