Confusion fills air over balloon festival

A HOT AIR balloon takes off as the sun rises during the 2012 Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta at Clark Freeport. JUN MALIG/INQUIRER CENTRAL LUZON

MABALACAT CITY, Philippines—Conflicting information on the upcoming hot air balloon festival in Lubao town in Pampanga province is creating confusion among people, including netizens.

The www.tourism.gov.ph website of the Department of Tourism (DOT) advises visitors to go to “the event website” at www.philballoonfest.net for more details about the festival, which is scheduled to be held April 10-13 in Barangay Prado Siongco in Lubao.

But upon opening the website, which is being maintained by the Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta (PIHABF) Foundation, there is a notice on “serious safety concerns for balloon flying” raised by the foundation for this year’s event.

“We will not be part of the April 2014 event, nor will we participate in its planning, organization or staging. We disclaim any association with its management,” the PIHABF Foundation said in the link provided by the DOT.

The provincial government of Pampanga and a newly formed group, known as Pilipinas International Balloon Festival Inc. (PIBFI), have decided to hold their own version of the hot air balloon festival in Lubao after the PIHABF Foundation, which organized the yearly annual event at Clark Freeport from 2000 to 2013, announced the cancellation of this year’s event due to lack of time to prepare.

Lubao is the hometown of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda.

It was the DOT’s Central Luzon regional office that initially decided to organize a ballooning event to replace the PIHABF’s.

But Inquirer sources said the DOT’s plan was scuttled after it failed to convince Clark officials to host the festival in the free port.

The DOT regional office later announced that its hot air ballooning event will be transferred to another location, which is some 33 kilometers from the Clark International Airport, to avoid any disruption to flights.

Days after the announcement, a press release was issued saying the event would be held in Barangay Prado Siongco in Lubao and would be organized by the newly formed PIBFI with the support of the arts, culture and tourism office of the Pampanga provincial government.

The DOT is no longer part of the organizing committee.

The press statement said the entrance fee to the event will be P150 per person. But the event’s print advertisements state that the entrance fee is P200.

Aside from hot air balloons and kites, the advertisements did not say anything about other aerial activities.

In past hot air balloon festivals in Clark, aircraft exhibition and precision flying, paragliding, skydiving and ultralight flights were also featured.

From the first hot air balloon festival in Clark in 1994 until last year, organizers held the events during the coolest time of the year, which is January or February.

Buddy Lopa, program director of PIHABF, told Inquirer recently that January and February are the ideal months to hold a balloon festival.

He said the temperature inside the propane-powered balloons needs to be significantly hotter than the surrounding air for the balloons to fly, but not too hot to damage the balloon’s fabric, which is either nylon or polyester.

Maynard Halili, PIHABF air operations director, said strict safety preparations and measures must also be observed to avoid any untoward incident that could jeopardize the status of the Philippines as one of the widely recognized hot air ballooning destinations in the world.