Baguio Insider

Is anyone from Manila coming up for the Panagbenga street dancing and float parades this weekend?

Without Monday, February 26, 2007, being declared a special holiday to commemorate the “People Power Revolution,” many visitors’ plans to attend the highlight of the Baguio Flower Festival have been cut short or cancelled altogether. Of course, should Malacanang Palace make the announcement tomorrow, there will be a mad scramble for rooms in the different hotels.

Please see this weekend’s schedule of events below:

Feb 24 - Street Dancing Parade along Session and Harrison Roads with a spectacular fireworks display in the evening.

Feb 25 - Parade of Floats & Marching Bands

What other solutions can there be for those who really want to watch the parades? Come up tomorrow, Friday, after school or work, so you can get some rest and find a good vantage point for the parade on Saturday. Leave Sunday evening so you can make it in time for work or school on Monday. If it is declared a holiday, then leave on Monday afternoon after shopping at the market, the ukay-ukay, or that nice factory outlet of export overruns at Camp John Hay.

This year’s parades promise to be bigger and better than the past years’ so it would be really a great excuse to flee from Manila’s summer heat. Visitors from Central Luzon and Ilocos have it good — they’re just 2 to 3 hours away from Baguio!

Of course you can watch the live TV coverage in your airconditioned rooms but, like I said before, you’ll have to suffer the shallow commentators, plus you’ll miss all the parties and fireworks at night!

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Ok, sad news. It’s definite, Monday is not a holiday. You’ll have to squeeze shopping into just a few hours after the parade.

Tip: All “pasalubong” items cost more or less the same everywhere, so buy them before going down at the bus terminal or at the stalls along Kennon or Marcos. As for veggies & strawberries, sorry, you’ll have to go to the market for that — and you can imagine prices will be higher than usual.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

How are you celebrating love? With whom?

In my experience as a restaurateur, Filipinos celebrate this special day in large groups and whole families if Valentine’s falls on a weekend. On a weekday, couples mostly. Valentine’s this year is on a Wednesday, so we prepare a lot of tables for 2.

I’ve had only one real romantic date in all my adult years. And this was 23 years ago. I have worked on each and every Valentine’s Day since I was 14 at our family restaurants, Alfredo’s Steaks on Tomas Morato in Quezon City, Halfway House (1991-1997) in Baguio City, Alfredo’s Steaks Baguio (1997-2005), among others. Last year, we were so busy at Atenara House with a large group checked-in for the most organized and fun team building execrcises I have ever seen.

This year, Valentine’s Day will be a nice, quiet and relaxed one for me in Baguio. I will not go down and help out in Quezon City because of the many bookings we have received here for the weekend and the next for the Panagbenga.

So, hurray for Lisa this year! I will spend Valentine’s Day strolling around my beautiful town, avoiding SM City Baguio and Session Road (sure to be literally swarming with thousands of college students and Baguio folk), enjoying the fine weather, and falling in love with Baguio City all over again.

I did a bit of blogrolling to check out sites that reference Baguio on Technorati today, and found quite a lot of Multiply sites that kept announcing excitedly, “Baguio, here I come!” And it was very heartening to note that folks, especially the young ones, still look forward to coming up for the Baguio Flower Festival (Panagbenga) despite concerns in recent years about how crowded it gets, how there’s no parking, etc. Maybe I’ve just been listening to folks who expect to just relax in Baguio each time they come up. Of course it’s crowded! And that’s to be expected because in just 12 short years, the Panagbenga has risen to the top of the Philippines’ fiesta calendar.

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Once a year, during the Baguio Flower Festival, Session Road is closed to traffic and booths are set up in the middle of the street. Tens of thousands of visitors promenade daily and sample the current offerings of Baguio businesses, as well as those “out-of-towners” who have the get-up-and-go to join the festivities.

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