Bar Today Home Editorial Archives Links Contact Us
Making Technology Work for Agriculture & People   Bureau of Agricultural Research
Bureau of Agricultural Research


Editorial
Industry Situationer
Featured Institution
Roses
Sunflowers
Orchids
Euphorbia
Feature Story
Doñas
Flower arrangement
Landscaping
Success Story
Another Success Story
Eco-Tourism


WWW BAR

Today is :


Eco-Tourism

Panagbenga: A symbol of tourism, culture, and local cutflower industry

by Ellaine Grace L. Nagpala

photos courtesy of
    http://gobaguio.com/panagbenga
    http://www.philippinecountry.com/
January-March 2007
Volume 9 Issue No. 1

 

Our family resides six kilometers away from the city proper of Baguio.  Living very close to the City of Pines entitles me a perpetual access to the famous toursist spots in the country and of course, the opportunity to enjoy every moment of the Panagbenga festival.

The sight of floats decorated with flowers, the sound of the marching band, the street dancers with colorful costumes, the magnificent garden shows, the lights, the bands, and delectable foods—Baguio City offers all these festivities in its own version of a flower festival.

TOURISM
The festivities begin
It all began in 1995 when the managing director of the John Hay Poro Point Development Corporation (JPDC), lawyer Damaso Bangaoet Jr., conceptualized the holding a flower festival in Baguio city.  Together with JDPC president Rogelio Singson and Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) chairman Victor Lim, the project immediately materialized into what is now popularly known as Panagbenga festival or Baguio Flower Festival.  Panagbenga is a Kankana-ey term meaning “a season of blossoming,” which was also referred to the then blooming cutflower industry in the Cordillera region.

The Panagbenga festival was conceived to boost the local economy and revive tourism in Baguio City after the devastating July 1990 earthquake.  For twelve years now, the Baguio Flower Festival has been attracting tourists from different parts of the country and has also started to draw attention internationally.  During the 11th Panagbenga festival in 2006, the Panagbenga management committee reported a net income of 2,097,697.38 PhP from the event.

The Baguio Flower Festival is a month-long event jampacked with activities for different people of different ages.  Contests such as barangay beautification, landscaping competition, flower exhibit, and garden show are organized to promote environmental awareness and the different uses of ornamentals.  Painting and photography contest are held for visual art enthusiasts.  Trade booths and bazaar are installed along Session Road and Burnham Park for entrepreneurs where a variety of goods are being sold.  Several concerts and street parties are also organized for the party-goers.  As the years pass, new activities have evolved to further enrich the Panagbenga spirit.

Parade of flowers
The highlight of the festival that draws spectators to Baguio city is the floral float parade.

The spectacular parade of flowers is usually held on the last weekend of February.  Yearly, more than 30 floral floats are paraded from Upper Session Road to Melvin Jones in Burnham Park.  The float parade is participated in by various organizations, institutions and commercial establishments who wish to advertise their group.

The installation of a float takes more than a week to be completed with at least 10 people working on it.  Mobile platforms are decorated with thousands of colorful flowers and foliages.  Fountains, boulders of rocks, castles, and other embellishments are added to satisfy the theme being showcased by the float.  In general, the parade showcases the beauty and elegance that ornamentals can bring to our daily lives.

A parade is not complete without the presence of marching bands and street dancers.  The floral float parade of Panagbenga is usually accompanied by bands and dancers.  Participating marching bands liven up the crowd of spectators while playing the latest hit tunes, novelty songs, and ethnic tunes.  Meanwhile, with the tunes played by the marching band, the street dancers jive merrily to the music, complete with their colorful costumes and headdresses.

CULTURE
What lies beneath
Since its inception, the festival's theme has always revolved around environment preservation with emphasis on cutflowers in the Cordilleras.  Sunflowers are famous for their big, bright yellow flowers which face to the east at sunrise and move track to the west over the course of the day.  Other than that, the sunflower has gained more popularity when it was chosen as the official logo of the Panagbenga festival.  The yellow color of the petals signifies peace and happiness brought about by the festival.  In the Cordilleras, wild sunflowers simply grow in the mountains and on the mountainsides and add hue to the green view when seen from afar.  Local residents found benefits from sunflower as a medicinal plant and as a potential mulching and compost material.

Aside from the showcase of flowers, the Panagbenga festival has acquired a face as it also reflects the Cordilleran culture—from the traditional feasts, clothes, music, and cuisine up to beliefs and practices of the Igorots.

To complete the festival, a hymn was composed for Panagbenga through the efforts of the bandmaster of St. Louis University, Prof. Macario Fronda.  To the hymn was added the rhythm of the Bendian Dance, a circle dance of celebration in Benguet and Mt. Province.  The Bendian dance's circular movement signifies unity and harmony among the members of the tribe indicating the coming together of various sectors of the community to bring the Panagbenga festival to life.

BENGUET CUTFLOWER INDUSTRY
“Let a thousand flowers bloom”
The majority of the cutflowers used to decorate the floats in the highlight celebration of the festival are grown in the towns of Benguet.

The climate of Benguet is characterized by a pronounced wet and dry season, with temperature ranging from eight to 26 degrees Celsius making the province suitable for cutflower production.  Roses, chrysanthemums, gladiolus, anthuriums, daisies, carnations, and lilies are the chief cutflowers produced in the province.

During the 1960's and 1970's, there was no cutflower industry to speak of in Benguet.  Only small-scale and backyard gardens owned by hobbyists were present then.  It was not until the 1980's when entrepreneurs began to think of cultivating cutflowers as a cash crop and shift from the then crowding vegetable business.

Nowadays, aside from All Saints' Day and Valentine's Day, the cutflower farmers in Benguet include Panagbenga in their cropping and harvesting schedule.  With the increase in demand for cutflowers in February, the farmers maximize such opportunity to earn more by increasing their production.  In 2001 alone, six years after the first staging of Panagbenga, the cutflower production in Benguet significantly increased to 29,586,307 metric tons from the previous 21,682,374 metric tons in 1998.  The flower festival paved the way for opportunities that benefited the local farmers and other people involved in the production and postproduction chain of cutflowers.

Towards a better Panagbenga
The Panagbenga festival is growing bigger every year because of the new activities being added and the continuous support it receives from the different sectors of the community.  In the coming years, the festival is expected to bring forth more tourists and earnings to the city and more income-generating opportunities to the entrepreneurs and farmers.

In this case, it is important for the local cutflower farmers to sustain their production and increase it when necessary.  The application of technologies in production, mass propagation, pest control and management, and proper postharvest handling is very important to achieve such end.  In the near future, the Panagbenga festival could even gain international recognition along with the other international flower festivals. end

----------
Sources:

 
 
 
    Copyright © 2002 Bureau of Agricultural Research