BAGUIO CITY—The parade of floral floats in the 17th Panagbenga (Baguio Flower Festival) impressed Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. so much that he wanted to encourage everyone to plant flowers.
“Panagbenga is the symbol of the rise of Baguio,” Jimenez said, enabling the summer capital to aspire for the title of Asia’s flower capital.
“We should encourage people to plant more flowers not only during [the months leading to the celebration of] Panagbenga but also [throughout the year, so that] when tourists come [to] Baguio, they would see flowers blooming everywhere,” he said on Sunday on the sidelines of the parade.
Although the festival has promoted flowers since its establishment in 1995, the blooms are actually grown and sold by farmers in neighboring La Trinidad, Benguet.
The festival was designed in 1995 by John Hay Poro Point Development Corp. (JPDC, now John Hay Management Corp., or JHMC) to draw back tourists to the city, which had to rebuild following the 1990 Luzon earthquake, a company statement said.
JHMC credits lawyer Damaso Bangaoet Jr., JPDC vice president, for conceptualizing the festival. The first festival was staged in February 1996.
Jimenez said the flower festival was one of the many Philippine festivals which the government has been marketing to the international market. He said the government expected to draw to the country this year up to 4.2 million foreign tourists.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) seeks to attract 10 million tourists by 2016, the tourism chief said.
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