At home on Panagbenga and Blooming Forward

March 10, 2019 Headlines

Back in the mid-90s, Baguio City, famous for its cold weather and pine breeze adopted a memorable rise-up slogan after the devastating earthquake that downed the city of pines: “preserving the environment”.

A logo competition theme showcasing the flowers of cordillera proved to be a perfect motif that was eventually embedded in the official logo of the Baguio Flower Festival, popularly known now as Panagbenga – “a season for blossoming, a time for flowering”.

Today, the entire nation knows it has to think that way, reason why every festival in the country is striving to distinguish itself from its competitors (if we may call it) by offering higher levels of activities, shows –at the front of the festival, where premium visitors and tourists expect to be pampered – downright entertainment and wide display of events and festivities offered.

A grand festival to the best festival while reflecting the history, traditions, and values. Panagbenga Festival likewise showcases the abundant array of flora endemic in the Cordillera Region.

Multitudes of delighted spectators flock to the cool mountain city, snagging spaces with local residents to witness the grand street dancing, grand floral float parades and midnight bazaars in Baguio City’s central business district.

As expected, this year’s month-long celebration featuring various activities throughout the month of February to March such as garden making competitions and exhibitions, street bazaars, midnight markets, and highlighted by lively street dances and float parades were all shoo-ins.

All these happen and flourish with added creativity through community spirit and involvement. Looking back 24 years ago, the first edition of the Baguio Flower Festival billed “The Birth of a
Tradition”, underscored the festival’s environmental, touristic, cultural and economic objectives, a full program of activities spread over a period of nine days.

The year after, the second offering dubbed “Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom” became a kickoff for a much bigger and better festival on its new moniker “Panagbenga” with a full week before the official opening, paintings by local artists and actually anyone and everyone from all walks of life were displayed in building walls along the main thoroughfares in the central business district, literally making a thousand flowers bloom.

The development of the local festival has increased cultural tourism and provided tourist destinations with economic and cultural benefits.

With a strong theme donned annually for the festival enhanced the international image of the host community, and the generation of short and long-term visitor flow, thus this year’s distinct festival theme – “Blooming Forward.”

Now, and through the years, capping the two grand parades is the closure of the city’s premiere road paving way to the Session Road in Bloom making it a walkway for residents and visitors alike showcasing sidewalk cafes, food stalls and booths that display handicrafts, one town, one product (OTOP) of participating local governments, and flower-inspired products.

The Session Road in Bloom is one of the most attended events of the month-long revelries because of week-long entertainments provided by local and national artists being tapped by sponsors and organizers to perform for the sustained promotion of the city’s major crowd drawing event.

Indeed, Panagbenga has become one of the country’s most visited festivals. For 24 years now, this colorful event born in the Philippines’ Summer Capital had drawn significant number of tourists from all over and continues to grow.

Already known globally, its inclusion to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (Unesco) creative cities list, joining Bandung and Pekalongan in Indonesia, Chiang Mai and Phuket in Thailand, and Singapore’s capital among others, and the only festival in the Philippines to be accredited by the International Festival and Events Association (IFEA), definitely seals Panagbenga as the grandest and best festival in the Philippines as it was envisioned.

A market in full bloom Tourism, being a complex industry, directly affects several sectors of the economy such as hotels, shops, restaurants, local transport firms, entertainment establishments, handicraft producers and the like.

The Philippine travel and tourism sector contributed a total of P1.4 trillion to the local economy in 2014, reflecting economic activities of related industries, as well as the “wider effects from investment, the supply chain and induced income impacts,” according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that in 2017 alone, the tourism industry contributed 12.2 percent to the Philippine economy and provided employment to around 5.3 million Filipino people.

PSA-Cordillera reported that in 2017, 1.86 million of the total 1.97 million tourists that arrived in Cordillera were from other parts of the Philippines and the remaining were foreign tourists.

The Department of Tourism-CAR affirmed that the region’s tourism industry is on track and has a very positive direction.

From 1,788,648 tourists recorded in 2016, it increased to 1,969,707 in 2017.

The Philippines’ summer capital, being one of the country’s top tourist destinations, receives the majority of tourist arrivals or 77 per cent of the total, which is equivalent to 1,516,900.

Such data that came from local government units gathered from accommodation establishments represent those who took at least an overnight stay and do not include the one-day visitors.

The Panagbenga festival is considered to have contributed significantly to the cultural and economic development of the city.

It has been a working coordination between the City Government, the private sector, and the

Baguio Flower Festival Foundation, Inc. (BFFFI). Based on its recent enactments, the festival’s mandated objective has become more coherent, which is “to promote the city’s culture, unity among its people, tourism and economic industries and to showcase Baguio as a City of Flowers”.

The integration of environmental concerns are indicated in some of its specific environmental policies and the designation of an environment/technical committee as one of the support committees.

PSA enjoins all government offices, public institutions and the private sector to conduct activities which are geared at promoting, enhancing and instilling nationwide awareness and appreciation of the importance and value of statistics, and focuses on the relevance of statistics in achieving a sustainable progressive growth of the country’s tourism industry given its significant contribution to the economy sustaining the growing influx.

While Baguio City is already a popular tourist destination, there is a need for sustainable support from the national government and private partners in keeping the city’s friendly and wholesome image in accommodating the growing number of local and foreign tourists.

On the other hand, the influx of tourists in the city during Panagbenga has brought widespread traffic congestion, pollution and crowding.

However, tourists still come up to Baguio to witness the spectacle which comes in convenient for businesses to thrive since they usually spend money during their stay at a destination.

This essentially has caused a great deal of business development particularly in the lodging industry to provide accommodation for travelers and profit from the massive influx of tourists coming from all over.

A festival demands infrastructure, such as transportation, accommodation, stadiums, and necessary construction.

According to the Office of Tourist Statistics of Baguio City, a total of 152 establishments—from hotels to resorts—are more than enough to cater to tourists.

These accommodation establishments help in gathering data on the number of tourist arrivals in the city.

A total of 1,294,906 tourists since February 2016 have visited the City of Pines, an increase of about 16.11 percent from the previous year.

And on its 2017 report, the city chalked up a 17.52 percent increase in tourist arrivals in 2017 with a total of 1,521,748 as against 2016’s figure of 1,294,906.

The peak months for tourist influx are noted during the Christmas season, Panagbenga Flower Festival, Holy Week and the rest of summer.

However, it can be observed that Baguio is no longer a summer vacation destination but a primordial weekend destination because of the huge influx of visitors from the lowlands during weekends and holidays, considering the significantly reduced travel time from Metro Manila to the city which is now approximately three and a half hours due to the completion of the Talrac-Pangasinan- La Union Expressway or TPLEX.

But for a city originally designed for 10,000 inhabitants and now abode to nearly 400,000 people, can an additional 1.7 million or more find comfort in a city losing its once staple environs?

Sustainable development and creativity has definitely moved from fringe to the mainstream, but to do good for the environment doesn’t mean you can’t live well.

At least in a moment, one can be at home on Panagbenga that’s constantly blooming forward in respect to preserving its environment.

Lito M. Camero Jr./ABN