Carpet of flowers blooms: Exciting events start Panagbenga festival

By Dexter A. See

BAGUIO CITY – Local residents and visitors coming up to the Summer Capital to witness the activities lined up for the 18th edition of the Panagbenga or the Baguio flower festival will be treated to a world-class floral arrangement that is featured in the “carpet of flowers,” a new attraction of this year’s month-long festivities, which is now open for public viewing at the Baguio Athletic Bowl.

Freddie Alquiroz, chairman of the Panagbenga executive committee, said the offering of this year’s “carpet of flowers” which sets this year’s event apart from previous offerings will be available for public viewing during the duration of the festival that draws inspiration from local flower growers.

“The largest carpet of flowers was created by 11 veteran landscapers for over a week and is now available for public viewing,” Alquiroz said, adding that the floral arrangement was patterned from the 2013 Panagbenga logo and it measures approximately 100 feet by 200 feet.

According to him, the local landscapers were able to complete the “carpet of flowers” using 5,500 pieces of live Marigold flowers, 60 pots of sunflowers and 500 pieces of marguerite daisies in order to provide the needed colorful attraction that will entice people to repeatedly visit the place and greatly contribute in inviting the interest of the public to flower arrangements.

Rose Cuilan, who led local landscapers in completing the newest attraction of this year’s flower festival, said that other items used in the completion of the “carpet of flowers” include 15 pots of araucaria trees, golden bush, schefflera and bougainvillea plants that were arranged in an artistic way to serve its purpose.

Furthermore, the newest attraction of this year’s flower festival also used up 3 trucks of gravel and some 500 sacks of rice husks that were used to give added value to the world-class floral arrangement.

Cuilan said the numerous activities of the flower festival this year tend to use up huge volume of fresh flowers that has always given life to the flower industry in some parts of the city and the nearby capital town of La Trinidad, Benguet, which is the source of the supply that will provide the needed beauty and attraction of the festivities lined up for the month-long celebration.

“Our flower growers are guaranteed of substantial income for the Panagbenga alone as they were able to make sure that their produce will be harvested on time for the flower festival this year,” Cuilan said, citing that flower growers are lucky that there was no typhoon that visited the Baguio-Benguet area that could have damaged the flowers, thus, there is abundant supply of flowers for the whole duration of the festival.

Aside from the “carpet of flowers,” she claimed bulk of the volume of flowers will be used up by local landscapers and artists in preparation for the nearly 30 floats of various government agencies, private institutions and corporations that will participate in the grand float parade on Sunday, February 24, 2013.

She disclosed sponsors of the different floats spend approximately P300,000 up to around P600,000 just to come up with a descent float and contribute in providing an added attraction for the millions of tourists that are expected to flock to the city during the third week of this month to witness the highlights of the festival and contribute in boosting the growth of the local tourism industry which had again started to gain momentum over the past several years.

Alquiroz added part of the Session Road in Bloom from Feb. 25 to March 3 will be stalls that are properly landscaped with fresh flowers apart from those stalls that will be selling flowers and other items that will feature latest techniques of landscaping in order to continuously promote the growth of the local flower industry.

Panagbenga is a Kankana-ey term for the blossoming of flowers and it was used by Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan to name the month-long festival since February to March is the period of the blossoming of flowers that are grown in some parts of the city and in La Trinidad, Benguet.

Last year, more than 2.5 million local and foreign tourists were reported to have flocked to the city, especially during the conduct of the grand streetdancing and grand float parades, which greatly contributed in sustaining the momentum of robust local economic growth.

Since the opening of the festival last February 1, 2013, Domogan revealed that the Panagbenga executive committee had been continuously receiving positive feedbacks on the new innovations that were introduced in this year’s staging of the flower festival that evolves around the theme “A Blossoming Odyssey.”