Panagbenga Festival (English: Flower
Festival) is a month-long annual flower festival occurring in Baguio, the
summer capital of the Philippines. The term is ofMalayo-Polynesian origin, meaning "season of blooming". The festival, held during the month of February, was created as a
tribute to the city's flowers and as a way to rise up from the devastation of
the 1990 Luzon earthquake. The festival includes floats that are decorated with flowers not
unlike those used in Pasadena'sRose
Parade. The festival also includes street dancing, presented by dancers
clad in flower-inspired costumes, that is inspired by the Bendian, an Ibaloi dance
of celebration that came from the Cordillera region.
Aside from economic boosts from
tourism, the festival also helped the younger generation of indigenous people
to rediscover their culture's old traditions. The indigenous people was first
wary with government-led tourism because of the threat that they will interfere
or change their communities' rituals.
History
The A. Lim of the Bases
Conversion Development Authority (BCDA). Entries
from the annual Camp John Nichol Sibug art contest gave its official logo: a spray of sunflowers. The
festival was set in February to boost tourism as it was considered as a month
of inactivity between the busy days of Christmas season and the Holy
Week and the
summer season.
In 1996, archivist and curator
Ike Picpican suggested that the festival be renamed as Panagbenga, a Kankanaey term
that means "a season of blossoming, a time for flowering".
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