BAGUIO CITY – The Baguio Flower Festival Foundation, Inc. (BFFFI) decided to increase the prizes for the large and medium float categories for the 29th edition of the Panagbenga to entice greater participation in the grand float parade, one of the major highlights of the city’s major crowd drawing event.
Panagbenga Executive Committee Co-Chairman and Baguio Country Club (BCC) General Manager Anthony de Leon said that the increase in the prizes of the winners of the large and medium float categories is part of the overall plan of providing higher prizes to entice more participation in the annual staging of the grand float parade.
From the previous P500,000 prize of the first placer in the large float category, this year’s winner will be getting P600,000, the second placer will be receiving P400,000 from the old rate of P300,000 while the third placer will be bringing home P300,000 from the previous prize of P200,000
For the winners of the medium float category, the first placer will be getting a cash prize of P350,000 from the old rate of P300,000, the second placer will be receiving P250,000 from the previous prize of P200,000 while the rid placer will be awarded P150,000 which is higher than the previous rate of P100,000
The BFFFI official claimed that the highest number of participants to the grand float parade was 36 and that the organizers are targeting to either match or exceed the same with the increase in the prizes for the winners in both the large and medium float categories.
However, he pointed out that the BFFFI does not want to have much bigger number of participating floats because of its projected effect on the traffic management that is why they will try to effectively and efficiently manage the situation so that the effect of the closure of the city’s main roads for the parades will not be enormous.
De Leon said that the BFFFI is also looking into further increasing the said prizes during the conduct of the 30th edition of the flower festival next year considering the milestone that the festival has achieved over the past three decades of being the city’s major crowd drawing event. By Dexter A. See