The Baguio's Panagbenga ( Flower ) Festival

     The Baguio's Panagbenga ( Flower ) festival is one of the major events held in the city of Baguio that is held annually.  People all over the Philippines wanted to witness this colorful festival.   I myself wanted to see it and learn the significance of it among the people of Baguio.  Every year I would miss this festival because of the hectic schedules but this year I surely didn't  miss this chance to see the unique and colourful festival of the summer capital of the Philippines.

     Panagbenga means flower and this festival is a month long event as in the whole month of February celebrated every year which  makes it as one of the longest festivals held in the Philippines.  The festival includes floats adorned with varieties of flowers that are commonly found in Baguio and the float parade is one of the highlights and major events of the festival.  The float festival also includes street dancing with dancers clad in flowers that is inpired by the Bendian,  an Ibaloi dance of celebration that originated from Cordillera region.

Photo credit: SLU ramp

Photo credit: SLU ramp

Photo credit: Rappler

Photos of  street dancers of the parade clad with flowers

History and background

     The Panagbenga flower festival is not really an old kind of festival.   It was created in the early 90s to give tribute to the city's ntive flowers and as a way to rise up from devastation of the 1990 central Luzon earthquake.  No one will ever forget that horrific incident that struck  central Luzon at 4:26 pm in July 16, 1990 with a magnitude of 7.7 and Baguio city was of the most affected places in central Luzon that left behind alot of damages with the largest fatalities of 1,621 people.

Photos of horrendous damages left after the earthquake that struck Baguio in July 16,1990

Photo credit: Korte Supremo

     Indeed it was horrendous and a dark nightmare among the residents of Baguio.  Gradually they recovered and thus the Flower festival  was created as a symbol of a newleaf of joy and tribute to the rise and triumphant recovery of Baguio city from devastation.  Since then, the so-called Panegbenga is held annually and became as one of the most popular festival there is in the Philippines.


The Panagbenga festival of 2019

       This is by far as the longest flower festival that Baguio ever had. It started from February 1, 2019 and ended March 10, 2019.  Usually the festival is celebrated for a 28 day period but this year it was all 38 day celebration with a daily corresponding events.

     Well,  it was the 2nd of March that we decided to see which was the grand float parade.   It was unfortunate of us that we were not able to see.  The grand float parade started  7:30 in the morning  but we got there around 11:00 AM.   The parade was already  finished and the people there were preparing for the next day celebration.   It was a long travel of five hours.  We left Manila around  4:30 AM and got there almost 11:00 AM.   The floats were already placed  in the plaza as exhibits for tourists to see.   Well,  tourists flocked the plaza and we were some of them.  Well,  though I wasn't able to witness the actual grand float parade but Indeed I was amazed how intricate and colourful the floats turned out to be.  They were covered with beautiful flowers and people couldn't help to make a striking post and took photos of the amazing floats adorned with native flowers.  Maybe next year we just have to leave earlier.

     It was nice to know that through this festival, we can learn the lesson how to recover and rise from such excruciating nightmare.   It depicts the importance of moving on to a much beautiful life.  It was nice to know how life can be so colorful despite the fact of having dreadful past.   See you guys next year.

Photo of Ms.  Angel Locsin
The star of the grand parade
Photo credit:  Ms.  Angel Locsin

Sources

www.panagbenga.com
Wikipedia