Officials of the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation, Inc. (BFFFI) assured the public that it will sustain the annual conduct of the Panagbenga or the Flower Festival because of the overwhelming support of concerned stakeholders and the general public to such a magnitude of gathering in the city.
BFFFI Executive Committee Co-Chairperson Freddie Alquiros claimed that for this year, it will be break even for the foundation because it had to provide the replacement of the PhP4 million subsidy that BFFFI was getting earlier from the local government but which was scrapped in 2020.
He admitted that the wave of sponsors for this year’s flower festival was not the same compared to the sponsorships provided by the foundation’s institutional partners during the pre-pandemic period but the BFFFI worked on what was readily available aside from the implementation of belt-tightening measures to provide the immediate needs of the traditional Panagbenga events.
For this year, the BFFFI had to solely provide the more or less P6.1 million in prizes for all the competitions, subsidies to the streetdancing, cultural and festival dance groups; subsidies for the landscapers, the more than P600,000 food for all volunteers during the whole duration of the flower festival among others.
For his part, BFFFI Executive Committee Chairman Anthony de Leon stipulated that the foundation can effectively and efficiently handle the conduct of the annual flower festival even without the financial support from the local government to avoid future issues. Based on comparative studies by the BFFFI, at least P15 million is needed to bankroll this same magnitude of the flower festival.
He pointed out that it is unfortunate that despite the supreme sacrifices done by the foundation and the volunteers in ensuring the smooth conduct of the flower festival as part of the ongoing efforts to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still a few people who try to negate the gains that had been achieved that paved the way for the flower festival to be recognized as one of the best crowd drawing events in the country.
In 2020 when the conduct of the flower festival was cancelled because of the emergence of the COVId-19 pandemic, BFFFI provided the subsidy for the participating streetdancing contingents granted to the contingents.
BFFFI assured the public of a much bigger and grander flower festival next year with more participation from various contingents that did not participate in this year’s affair.
