Panagbenga 2012 slated on Nov 14

BAGUIO CITY — The city government here will launch on November 14 the preparation of the ‘Panagbenga 2012’ or the Baguio Flower Festival, the main tourism-oriented festival of the city drawing yearly an average crowd of a million visitors.

City Mayor Mauricio Domogan said that, “the 2012 festival will still be held in the month of February, but it is better for us to prepare early so that we can always give the best activities and entertainment for our visitors and guests.”

‘Panagbenga’ means ‘a season for blossoming’ from the Kankana-ey dialect widely used by Cordillerans in the Northern Philippine highlands particularly from the Mountain Province and the Northern part of the Benguet.

The month long festival highlights a grand street parade of the best dancers predominantly the natives of Cordillera Region garbed in flowers of different sizes and vibrant colors. They dance their way to the blended tempo of highland ganzas or gongs and the pulsating beat of southern drums.

The parade is also a grand display of floats made and solely adorned with different kinds and species of flowers, and a spectacle of giant moving gardens and by fantasy characters.

Baguio’s consciousness for environmental protection started when it was nearly devastated by a powerful earthquake on July 16, 1990 killing some 600 people.

Domogan said, that thirteen years ago the festival was conceptualized in order to enhance the city’s various programs of environment protection and at the same time strengthen its role as a destination for international tourism.

Soon after, the festival served as an expression of how Baguio was restored as a clean and green city after that disaster.