Baguio launches Panagbenga Festival 2022

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — After shelving the flower festival for two years due to the COVID pandemic, the city government of Baguio along with its residents and the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation Inc. (BFFFI) yesterday launched the Panagbenga 2022 at the Baguio Melvin Jones Grandstand.

BFFFI chair and former Baguio mayor Mauricio Domogan said the launch showed how the cooperation, sacrifices and determination of the Baguio people to overcome the odds was paying off.

Domogan said it never occurred to him that the flower festival, which started in 1996, would be stalled by a pandemic.

“I congratulate everyone for making the Panagbenga celebration possible despite stringent limitations, prohibitions and imminent danger brought by the pandemic,” Domogan said.

He said the event was a thanksgiving to God for the gift of nature and the season of blooms.

He honored the founders of the Panagbenga, Damaso Bangaoet and Macario Fronda, who composed the Panagbenga hymn.

Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong said the Panagbenga 2022 would be the centerpiece in the revival of the city’s tourism industry, which has been badly affected by the pandemic.

He said the celebration  would herald “the season of hope.”

Organizers said this year’s Panagbenga would not feature the street dance and float parade, two of the festival’s crowd-drawing activities.

Before the pandemic, the festival was launched every November and opened on the first day of February the following year.