Panagbenga draws TV stars, big crowd

FLORAL PARADE Cordillera motifs dominatemany of the floral floats in Sunday’s grand parade
in this year’s staging of Panagbenga Festival in Baguio City. —EV ESPIRITU

BAGUIO CITY — Stars were aplenty here on Sunday. In contrast, hardly anyone from their industry attended the 32nd anniversary of the Edsa People Power Revolution.

The Grand Float Parade of this year’s Panagbenga (the Baguio Flower Festival) drew hundreds of tourists to the summer capital, not only to see the flower-encrusted designs but also to cheer on the TV and movie stars on floats.

Actor Coco Martin and the ensemble from the popular television cop show “Ang Probinsyano” was on a sunflower-themed float of TV network ABS-CBN cruising along downtown.

Former Sen. Lito Lapid and multiawarded actors Michael de Mesa and Angel Aquino waved from the float as they sang songs along the parade route.

Megan Young, Miss World 2013, and actress Glaiza de Castro rode on the float of rival television network GMA, which promoted its current line of soap operas like “The Stepsisters.”

They were joined by actors Mikael Daez, Ruru Madrid and Matt Evans.

Comedian Empoy Marquez was surrounded by colorful blooms on a float built by a participating company.

Basketball star Asi Taulava was spotted jogging on Harrison Road alongside a float promoting an expressway.

Some students, who were scheduled to perform, abandoned their group to wave at the TV stars.

23 floats

Twenty-three floats rolled down Session Road, Magsaysay Avenue and Harrison Road.

Many floats used highland motifs, such as the entry that was inspired by the Gaddang culture in Cagayan province.

One entry featured a vinta carrying Filipino seafarers, which was sponsored by a pharmaceutical company.

Policemen and volunteers were busy dissuading visitors from parking along the streets.

Motorists were directed to public schools, which opened their gates this weekend to accommodate the vehicles of tourists who have not booked hotel rooms.

Downtown Session Road will remain closed from Monday (Feb. 26) to Sunday (March 4) to accommodate street shops that make up the annual Session Road in Bloom bazaar.

Ninety percent of each float that took part in the Panagbenga (a local term for blossoming) was decorated with fresh flowers from farms in Benguet towns like La Trinidad and Atok.

This seasonal demand for cut flowers has given rise to a symbiotic relationship between the city and neighboring Benguet towns where growing flowers has become a thriving industry, said Baguio Mayor Mauricio Domogan, chair of Baguio Flower Festival Foundation Inc.

Baguio civic leaders, led by the late lawyer Damaso Bangaoet Jr. developed the flower festival in 1995 to draw back tourists after the city was devastated by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in July 1990.

Although the cut flower trade has been around before the first Panagbenga was staged in 1996, many flower farms have expanded due to the huge market generated by the festival.

Side business

What is now a multimillion-peso enterprise in Atok began as a side business for women until the early 2000s, said Alma Alsaen, an employee of the municipal agriculture office who also runs her own flower farm.

Farmers harvest wild flowers, such as daisy, gladiola and calla lily, on mountain slopes or on the fringes of vegetable farms, Alsaen said.

The flowers are then wrapped in cardboard or plastic sacks and sent to Manila on old Dangwa buses to be sold to retailers.

A middleman, usually a townmate, would come every weekend or at the end of the month to distribute the farmers’ share from the sales. —Reports from Ev Espiritu, Willie Lomibao and Karlston Lapniten