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.

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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