IF YOU close your eyes for a moment and let yourself listen to the Panagbenga hymn, remembering will take over and take you back to a time when the Flower Festival was young.
The Hymn, from its composer, Macario Fronda, will force you to remember its slow and deliberate beat and remember a time when you called the festival your own, before surrendering it to the mammoth crowd.
The barometer for the festival is not found in any calendar.
The start of the season is marked with locals gently humming the hymn, out of jest for its anticipated redundancy during the weekend parades or nostalgia for the Maestro who now plays it for the angels.
The tune of the hymn is dedicated not only to the city but also to the entire province, creating the rhythmic melody depicting the terrain of the highlands culled from an ancient Bendian dance, a ritual of celebration.
Fronda’s composition sets the mood of the gathering of cultures, ideas and the birth of a tradition, not knowing it would become the sound of the festival.
A legacy of a 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.
Today on its 20th year, the festival has become bigger than expected, making the city a hub for tourism and culture during the month.
But has the Flower Festival dwindled?
Touted as the festival to beat in the North, Panagbenga has become a nationwide hit, with people coming from all over to view its grandeur.
But two decades of celebration have befallen the City and it is sometimes hard to grasp the essence of the festivities.
There are over 2 million attendees scattered into the month long events of the festival, culminating in its last week where a grand street and float parade fill the main roads.
Do we gauge its success in terms of crowds, participants or hotel occupancy? Where have we gone in two decades?
For the first time in 20 years, we celebrate the festival without its 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.
Bangaoet presented the idea to the Board of Directors and the rest was history - the birth of a festival every February was made.
His legacy, like Fronda’s, will forever be celebrated with every Panagbenga.
From a community festival in the early years after the earthquake, it has risen to become a nationwide event which has placed the Mountain City in the map of festivals.
In 20 years, we cannot gauge the success of the festival in any of the parameters set today.
The success of the festival is seen in the streets during the parades; it is heard in the music; it is felt in the air; with the excitement of preparation; the anticipation of revelry, competition; and the pride of place and heritage.
The success of the festival is seen even in the sarcasm of locals and the squabbling of groups wanting to take center stage, the drudgery of repetition.
It has become a tradition, an event to focus on whether we like it or not.
When the Saint Louis University band plays the Panagbenga Hymn, the sound a City has grew accustomed to will force you to stop and remember and will even send chills down your spine.
When the parade of banners pass, you will recall how, many years ago, you scrambled to make your own banner, wanting to be part of the community event.
When the children sashay the streets, with their eyes filled with pride, wearing the colors of the region, you cannot help but smile back.
On its 20th year, and the absence of its two fathers who gave it its sound and identity, we are now its carriers, continuing its tradition of celebration that makes the festival a continuing legacy not only for the highlands but also for the entire world.