BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio Domogan is raring to plan for Panagbenga 2013, with observations from activities of the Baguio Flower Festival 2012 as the closing program goes on today and the Session Road in Bloom and Market Encounter winding up their goings-on in their respective venues.
Though with much fanfare, there are lessons learned from Panagbenga 2012 which we should study and with the improvements, incorporate for the betterment of the 2013 Baguio Flower Festival. There ought to be innovations next year, that which viewers should expect and look forward to, the city’s top executive said.
The flower festival ends this Sunday afternoon, with the closing program at the Athletic Bowl.
An awarding for winners shall be done, interspersed with winning performances in the streetdancing and drum and lyre parades. Dancing contingents from Kabayan, Benguet; Tabuk, Kalinga and other cordillera groups shall perform their winning pieces; as with the Baguio Central School, Don Mariano Marcos Memorial Elementary and Special Education Schools who won the drum and lyre competition, opening day, Feb. 1
The flower float winners shall also be awarded for their artistic creations which rolled along main thoroughfares last Sunday, while the Baguio City National High School (BCNHS) and Philippine Military Academy (PMA) bands shall provide accompaniment for the PambansangAwit, Baguio Hymn and March. A silent drill shall be performed by PMA cadets, and a raffle for early comers shall be done; with limited tickets to be given out.
A grand fireworks display which for years has wowed Baguio locals and tourists, follows at the same venue towards the evening.
Mayor Domogan again thanked the participants, young and old alike, to all the activities from the opening day up to the very last minute. “We could not have handled a festival of this magnitude without your support,” the mayor said.
Other Panagbenga activities, such as the open scrabble tournament, extend up to the middle of March, and the landscaping, roadside garden, Cleanest and Greenest Barangay, up to May this year.
“Our very own flower festival serves as a thanksgiving to remind us of nature as God’s blessings, and our obligation to care for it with concerted efforts. This would unite us, the people of Baguio for the development and improvement of the city we love,” the mayor said.
In addition, the festival should promote cultural identity with the profusion of beautiful flowers, to the global world of tourism as being actively promoted for Baguio.
The mayor observed a vast profusion of tourists in the city, as he noticed people from Aparri, Aurora , Bataan, Manila , and those from the south. “Locals have been lost in a sea of strangers’ faces,” he said, as he gazed around, marching down Session road to the Athletic Bowl during the streetdancing and float parades.
Observers also say that business has been booming in the city since the Panagbenga opening and this should serve as encouragement to businessmen and inspiration to soon- to-be entrepreneurs. “Good business practices should be sustained, as it gets the city’s revenue up,” the mayor said. Inns, hotels, pension houses, lodging houses and even private homes were filled and even Burnham Park had overnight tent residents, which the mayor said had to be dealt with, next year.
Domogan also noticed that national newspapers bannered photos of the Panagbenga crowds in the city the next day after. And not just the national media are here, even international press watched, he added. Observers have also commented on how the flower festival; streetdancing performances and flower floats; are of “international quality,” the mayor proudly said.
A post-evaluation meeting shall be done, as well as validation of the number of tourists who came to the city, the mayor said, as tourist estimates run up to a million-and-half spectators who lined up the roads up to the Athletic Bowl.
Funding, housing, services, transport and other amenities shall be discussed during the meeting. Improvements on various aspects of the Panagbenga festival shall be looked into, the mayor ended.
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