BAGUIO CITY – The Baguio Flower Festival Foundation, Inc. (BFFFI) is now setting its sights on a much bigger, better and grandiose staging of the 30th edition of the Panagbenga next year following another milestone that had been reached by the annual staging of the month-long crow drawing event of the city.
BFFFI president Freddie Alquiros said that by June, the foundation will be finalizing the schedule of next year’s flower festival to ensure that there will be enough time to prepare for a much bigger and better line up of events that will spice up its 30th edition.
He claimed there will be increases in the subsidy to the participating drum and lyre contingents and festival dance groups aside from the projected increases in the prizes of various competitions, including the grand float parade, to be able to entice more individuals and groups to join and celebrate the gains of the festival thorough the past three decades.
The BFFFI official added that organizers are also looking into the increased conduct of community-led events to highlight the active involvement of the concerned stakeholders in the growth of the festival into one of the best festivals in the country and part of the elite list of festivals worldwide that had been included in the prestigious International Festivals and Events Association.
For her part, BFFFI Chief of Staff Evangeline Payno said that trainings for existing and budding floatmakers, creative dance choreographers, among others will be conducted to guarantee the availability of more floatmakers to cater to the projected increase in the participation in the grand float parade and for the residents and visitors to be able to witness new dance steps from the participants of the grand streedancing parade.
Some interested participants to this year’s grand float parade had to back out because of the lack of space to assemble the floats and the inadequate floatmakers as all of the floatmakers were already loaded with the number of floats that joined the said parade.
She stated that the foundation also intends to target budding floatmakers for them to be able to significantly improve their skills and knowledge on floatmaking and be able to contribute in the thriving floatmaking endeavor to provide for the needs of various individuals and groups wanting to avail of their services inside and outside the city.
On the other hand, Alquiros underscored that part of the 30th edition of Panagbenga will be a coffee table book that will feature the works of the media, editors and photographers on the evolution of the flower festival from its humble beginnings up to us present status as one of the must see festivities around the country and established its identity as the festival with the most disciplined crowd.
Panagbenga is a Kankanaey term for blossoming and it was suggested by former Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan to be the name of the festival since it will be done in the time of the blossoming of flowers in February. By Dexter A. See
