Baguio kicks off month-long Panagbenga festival

BAGUIO CITY- The annual Baguio Flower Festival, locally known as “Panagbenga” (A time to bloom), already on its 18th year, opened Friday morning with a grand parade to start 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, kicked 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.

Officials from 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.

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, with 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.