CITY officials with the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation, Inc. (BFFFI) formally launched the 2017 Baguio Flower Festival.
For the 22nd year, the annual festival of blooms will showcase local flowers in a display of floats and a glimpse of highland culture and tradition, themed “Inspired by beauty, nurtured by nature.”
Mayor Mauricio Domogan, BFFFI Executive Committee chairman Anthony de Leon, with Bernardo Vergara, Julie Cabato, Jodi Alabanza led the launching of the February month-long festival.
The Baguio Flower Festival started as a small community event, making locals and visitors see and feel the celebrations of a Mountain City which was struggling to get back on its feet after the 1990 earthquake.
Today on its 22nd year, the festival has become bigger than expected, making the city a hub for tourism and culture during the month.
The event is a now a member of the International Festival and Events Association (IFEA) – The premiere Association Supporting and Enabling Festival & Event Professionals Worldwide.
Throughout the two-day parade highlight, the opus of the late Macario Fronda, the Panagbenga Hym, is played by contingents, depicting the terrain of the mountain city originally culled from the Bendian Dance of Benguet.
Fronda composed the hymn in 1989 to inspire Cordilleran athletes during the Palarong Pambansa inspired by the Ibaloi’s festive gongs combined with community chanting.
Fronda passed in 2013, but left the festival with a legacy of song which has become the official sound of the season of blossoming here.
The Panagbenga founding father, Damaso Bangaoet, who thought of the celebration when he was still John Hay Poro Point Development Corporation (JPDC) Managing Director for Camp John Hay has also passed on but his legacy, like Fronda’s will forever be celebrated with every year with the festival.