Baguio Insider

Although I live in Baguio, the Panagbenga Parade weekend started with a long drive up from Manila at 1:30 a.m. on January 23, just like any other tourist making a long trek up to Baguio. A normal car ride takes us 4 hours without stops, driving leisurely. We got to Baguio at 9:00 a.m. This makes me appreciate Baguio visitors so much, because they brave all that, at great expense too (time and money), to visit our beautiful city.

The street dancing and band parade had started. So Nico rushed to Harrison Road to catch the competitors as they entered the Athletic Bowl to perform one last time.

When I used to judge the street dancing competition in the early Panagbenga years, some of us judges would be located some secret location along Session Road so that the competitors would have to perform all throughout the parade route. One of the best bets to win that year just walked past us so we all had to give them low marks that caused a great uproar.

Judges did not use to confer with each other, contestants’ schools were never revealed to prevent bias. We all just judged them based on choreography, costume, creativity and other criteria.

Why I stopped judging is a long story that I will not get into here.

Back to the long drive up to Baguio. It was like Holy Week, except that everybody on the road seemed to be heading to one place only — Baguio City Philippines — for that happiest of festivals, the Panagbenga. At 8:00 a.m. there were hundreds of people who stopped by the Lion’s head for souvenir photos. Tourist buses were parked ON KENNON ROAD, and not to the side, causing so much traffic on the first hairpin curve in Camp 6. It was so congested there that we could not even afford to stop take photos of the spectacle!

Upon reaching home, I was not even able to watch the parades on TV as so many guests started to arrive earlier than the regular check-in time. Then there were those I had to serve breakfast to, as my new manager could not get here from her house on Marcos Highway. The traffic, of course, was horrendous, as it always is. But folks have stopped complaining about that. There has always been the option to walk that folks with cars have forgotten to do. February was selected as the perfect month to hold the Baguio Flower Festival because of the perfect weather. But it drizzled on our parades on both days, nothing like the torrents that came in 2004, when Domogan and Vergara declared, “The Show Must Go On!” and had the little kids drenched, barefoot and pneumonia-ed. In 2008, the light rain was due to weird weather — a typhoon that hit the Philippines hard on the Bicol side a few days ago.

I used to think the typhoon we had in January 2007 was so off but February typhoons are heretofore unheard of! Maybe they’ll just keep moving back until they start coming again in July. For Baguio’s rainy season July to September have been relatively dry for the past few years that it’s such a pity that tourists have been accustomed to avoiding the City of Pines during these months.

My account of the parades is thus hearsay — from Nico, from guests. But hey, I have hundreds and hundreds of photos to tell me, and you, the story. The best of which are included in this post, the rest I am uploading to a web album in a few days.

Nico says that unlike other Parade Weekends Past, there’s no way anyone would have gotten hungry this year as SO MANY HAWKERS were selling food amid the crowds. Too bad that the city government did not make money from these people, a lot of whom, I’m sure came up from the lowlands to peddle their wares, take the money and run, just on this occasion.

This year, all my guests were happy, happy, happy! With the parades, with sackloads, yes, sackloads of pasalubong items. I think Baguio visitors spend in this order, from highest to lowest: Pasalubong, Meals, Lodging, Transportation with the last two going neck-and-neck because sometimes lodging is free and transportation is getting so expensive. Baguio transient homes and hotels have not really raised their prices much but bus companies like Victory Liner have increased rates from Php450-600 one way and Php900-1200 round trip in just a few months for the special non-stop bus, while the aircon bus has been a steady Php390.00 for the past years.

Visitors did not mind the drizzle, although I’m sure those with cameras miss the clear, bright blue February skies and uber-white fluffy clouds, if any. Smart, the telecommunications giant certainly knew where to position their sponsor billboard. So many photos have them in the background. It’ll take more than the Adobe Photoshop I posses to remove them from the background.

There was a school that danced with the Jollibee mascot and streamers as part of their performance. Their justification? Costumes, rehearsals and props are expensive. They needed a sponsor. I make no judgments anymore, although there is a way to avoid this dilemma.

One school had large streamers that said “We Love Baguio. We Care.” And somehow, as I was editing the photos, involuntary tears poured from my eyes. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because it’s exactly how I feel. The Panagbenga for a Baguio resident sometimes comes just as a form of entertainment, sometimes as a business opportunity. In recent years, for the organizers, it has definitely been as a major business opportunity. But to me, it is the selfless showcase of all that is Baguio. We perform, we participate because we love Baguio.

By Sunday, Burnham Park was muddy with all that trampling going on but the crowds were massive and peacefully converging at the Athletic Bowl for the announcement of Parade winners. Baguio Country Club won, so did Smart, Jollibee and Chow King. Ah, only big business can afford these kinds of floats these days. But we do have to thank them for participating in a big way. For what would the Panagbenga be without the Floral Floats?

Over dinner at peaceful Bliss Cafe tonight, some dinner guests were saying how wonderful the children were about ‘projecting’ themselves before the camera, how they would all look at the crowds and give them big smiles. And I said, “They’re seasoned performers these young kids. They know exactly what to do every year!’

Ah the Panagbenga, its success is directly proportional to the number of visitors it attracts by showcasing the beautiful Baguio community spirit.

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Nico took so many photos on sports mode which is a faster shutter speed that can be used for stop-motion photography but I am still studying software that will allow us to feature all that he took. In the meantime, enjoy these photos. Panagbenga 2008 photos will be out in a Web Album soon!

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For those of you coming up for the last weekend of the Panagbenga, you may still catch Session Road in Bloom.