P100 fee seen as balloon festival to push through

CLARK FREEPORT—Officials of the Department of Tourism (DOT) and other organizers of the Philippine International Friendship Balloon Festival 2014 have decided to charge P100 entrance fee to the event site due to insufficiency of funds to stage the annual festival.

In a press statement last month, which was posted on the VisitMyPhilippines website, the DOT announced that spectators would not pay an entrance fee and that only a P50 parking fee for cars and P100 for buses would be collected during the event from April 10 to 13.

But in a text message to the Inquirer, Ronaldo Tiotuico, DOT Central Luzon director, said organizers have decided to charge entrance fee due to limited funds.

DOT in charge

The DOT will again lead the hot air balloon festival here after 16 years. The agency organized the aerial events from 1994 to 1998.

In 1999, the festival was canceled due to several problems like insufficient funds and possible interruption of flights at the international airport here.

P250 last year

The Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta (PIHABF) Foundation, in 2000, organized the annual crowd-drawing event. It handled the festival until 2013.

Entrance fee of P250 per person was charged during the PIHABF here last year.

Last month, the foundation announced the cancellation of this year’s PIHABF due to insufficient time to plan and prepare for a better and more exciting festival.

The cancellation prompted Tiotuico, with the approval of Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr., to organize another version of the festival in cooperation with the Clark Development Corp., Clark International Airport Corp. and the Philippine Air Force.

Tiotuico said the DOT expects 15 to 20 hot air balloonists from different countries to join the festival.

But the PIHABF Foundation expressed concern about safety, saying the time to learn the processes and preparation for safety requirements was “too short.”

Summer not ideal

Members of the foundation said summer is not the ideal time to hold a hot air balloon festival. They said all hot air balloon fiestas in the past, since 1994, were held during the cold months, usually February, when the surrounding air is cool.

But Tiotuico said warmer temperatures in April pose no problem for hot air balloons.

A DOT press statement said the average daytime temperature difference between the months of February and April is only 2 to 3 degrees Celsius.

“It means that April is hotter only by a small margin. Pilots who have been invited to participate this year have been informed about the temperature here in April at 34 degrees on the average. Nobody is complaining because ballooning is done early morning and late afternoon when the temperature is generally more comfortable for the pilots,” the DOT said. Jun Malig, Inquirer Central Luzon