Baguio launches flower festival 'Panagbenga 2024'

BAGUIO CITY — Baguio City launched the 2024 edition of its famed flower festival, “Panagbenga,” on Monday morning, six days before Christmas and more than month before the month-long fest on February.

Already on its 28th year, Panagbenga (or invented local term for a Season of Blooming) 2024 celebrations has the theme  “Celebrating traditions, embracing innovation.”

Baguio Flower Festival Foundation Inc. (BFFFI) President Frederico Alquiros believes that the festival will draw tourists in Baguio on newer and bigger heights.

"It is not just a festival, but a pride of the City of Baguio where diverse cultures of the people come together to showcase the beauty of the City of Pines,”  Alquiros said.

"This envisages the festival as a beacon for the harmonious coexistence of the old and new. It is an invitation to experience the richness of Baguio's floral and cultural heritage and to participate and to participate in the innovative spirit that promises a thriving a resilient future for the City," he added.

"Panagbenga" was created in the year 1995 by lawyer Damaso Bangaoet of the then John Hay Poro Point Development Authority (JPDC). It started during the term of former Baguio City Mayor and lawmaker Mauricio Domogan, as a symbol of the rising up of Baguio from the rubbles and devastation from the 1990 killer earthquake.

Tourism director for the Cordillera Jovy Ganongan is also hopeful that the 2024 Panagbenga topbilled by the BFFI Inc., the private organizer, will be a very exciting celebration.

Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Baguio Flower Festival and Board of Trustee of the BFFI Inc. Athony de Leon, who is also the general manger of the posh Baguio Country Club (BCC) stressed that the organizing committee aligning with the festival’s theme “will have to come up with more adaptable events that can be tourism-friendly and at the same time friendly to the environment.” 

"We will focus on that more," he added.

De Leon also primed on encouraging more participation from the community and people around Baguio,” because we can just be half successful if we get the support and participation of the community.”

Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong promised neighboring towns around Baguio (La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan and Tuba) of greater participation and economic benefits from the upcoming festival as he expects “more tourists coming in,” He estimated some 1.8 million tourists attending the whole festival duration.

The mayor emphasized that the festival is “a private sector-led, but government supported” endeavor. 

"We will provide all the support needed from the local government," Magalong said.