Baguio's Panagbenga Festival opens

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – Thousands of city folk and visitors turned out yesterday morning for the opening of the annual Panagbenga Festival.

Dancers from different grade schools took part in the event, clad in “more native” costumes to live up to the organizers’ move to draw closer to the Cordilleran culture. Past festivals were observed to have gone “purely commercial.”

The 16th staging of the Panagbenga this year has the theme “The Environment and Community in Harmony.”

Yesterday’s merriment though was nearly eclipsed by a man’s body found floating in the Burnham Park Lake. Police, however, found no signs of foul play.