BAGUIO CITY – Local officials and organizers of the 22nd edition of Panagbenga are bracing for inclusivity in the future for the city’s crowd drawing event to help promote other tourist destinations within the neighboring towns of Benguet, particularly La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba, and Tublay.
Anthony de Leon, co-chairman of the Panagbenga Executive Committee, said the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation, Inc. (BFFFI) will be inviting representatives from the local governments of La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba and Tublay in their future planning meetings to see how to harmonize the city and each municipality’s crowd drawing events to maximize opportunities and create greater impact.
He said it will now be up to the BLISTT representatives to decide what to do with their desired crowd drawing events once the BFFFI will present to them the schedule of the various activities lined up for Panagbenga 2018.
One of the missions of Panagbenga, according to de Leon, is for the different surrounding municipalities to be part of the festivities so that these places will get a share of the domestic and foreign tourist arrivals in the city by offering added must-see attractions in their places during the schedule of the Panagbenga.
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan said the active participation of Benguet provincial officials led by Gov. Crecencio C. Pacalso and BLISTT officials led by La Trinidad Mayor Romeo Salda, Itogon Mayor Victorio Palangdan, Sablan Mayor Arthur Baldo, Tuba Mayor Ignacio Rivera and Tublay Mayor Armando Lauro is a good sign of stronger ties between the BLISTT local governments that will surely be expanded as the years go by.
He explained what is important now is for the concerned municipal governments to plan out their major events so that it will be aligned with the schedule of Panagbenga to allow organizers to prepare unified promotional materials for all the events of the BLISTT thus ensuring bigger participation from the people in all the events in the different municipalities.
According to him, the proposal to synchronize the conduct of the festivals in the BLISTT area was already brought to the attention of the concerned municipal officials and it will now be up to the local governments to consider the proposal to have a bigger and better festival in the future.
La Trinidad holds its popular Strawberry festival during the whole month of March, Tuba celebrates its Ava festival in Deember, Itogon marks its founding anniversary also in December same as that of Tublay while Sablan celebrates its Fruit festival in September.
Earlier, Mayor Rivera proposed the rescheduling of its Ava festival from December to either February or March to heed the call of Baguio City officials and Panagbenga organizers to slowly align this event with the Panagbenga so that their event can gain equal promotion with that of the flower festival, the only festival in the country that is included in the International Festivals and Events Association.
By Dexter A. See
