Flower fest crowd draws ads, church

FLOATS featuring fresh flowers grown in Benguet province draw tourists to Baguio City as the summer capital celebrates Panagbenga (Baguio Flower Festival). RICHARD BALONGLONG/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines —The flower-bedecked floats that paraded in the 19th staging of Panagbenga (Baguio Flower Festival) on Sunday drew thousands of tourists—along with advertising and marketing people who tried to sell them new products and evangelists from various religious groups who tried to win souls.

This cacophony of voices competed for people’s attention at downtown Baguio, where 22 floral floats, in various themes and sizes, rolled down Session and Harrison Roads for a three-hour parade.

The floats’ accompanying marching bands, cheer dancers, street-dancing troupes and cosplayers wearing colorful costumes wowed spectators who packed sidewalks along the parade route.

The floats, made from flowers grown in Benguet province, were sponsored by local hotels, a shopping mall chain, telecommunications firms, schools, restaurants, government agencies, a convenience store, a media organization, a pawnshop chain, expressway operators, farmers’ cooperatives, a realty firm, a theme park operator and firms marketing an assortment of products from facial cream to rubbing alcohol.

The float of SM City Baguio, featuring winged horses that sat atop a pagoda, delayed the parade for a few minutes after it encountered trouble squeezing past the pedestrian bridge as it turned the corner from Session Road toward the Burnham Park area.

The float operator managed to navigate through, but only after losing the ear of one of the horses.

The float, featuring a Cinderella motif with a horse and a squash-shaped carriage carrying a woman dressed like a princess, had engine trouble and was unable to proceed to the Baguio Athletic Bowl, where all the floats were put on display.

The city government’s float featured the characters Minions, from the movie “Despicable Me,” while the Baguio Country Club’s float featured a backdrop and characters from the animated fantasy and adventure film, “Epic.”

Almost every corner of the city had people holding out smartphones and tablets, as they took photographs of the floats and dancers.

Their camera phones were trained on actress Marian Rivera who was on the GMA Network float, while singer Ogie Alcasid accompanied Miss Earth pageant titlists aboard the float of the pawnshop chain, M Lhuillier.

Photographers also tried to get a good view when a group of cosplayers marched down the street, many wearing costumes of popular animé and manga characters. They were followed by a float owned by the telecommunications firm Smart, featuring cosplay artist Alodia Gosiengfiao.

The company that is building TPLEx (Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway) entered a float for the parade. It featured flower windmills depicting Ilocos Norte, a vintage building depicting Vigan City and the sunflower depicting Baguio—all major destinations that would benefit from a shorter travel time from Metro Manila to northern Luzon once the expressway is completed in two years.

The operators of the North Luzon Expressway commissioned a float that had an ecological theme: Plants versus Pollution, which was a play on popular game, Plants versus Zombies. It featured characters from the games, expelling bubbles.

A float commissioned by a Christian evangelical school joined the parade, featuring piano keys and musical notes made of flowers.

On the side streets, members of another religious group preached and asked people to repent.

In Burnham Park, crowds of tourists milled around the spectacle of dancing and singing followers of Hare Krishna. Vincent Cabreza, Kimberlie Quitasol and EV Espiritu, Inquirer Northern Luzon