Still blooming: Panagbenga at 30 and a city that refused to fall

BAGUIO CITY — By midmorning Saturday, Baguio was already on its feet. Drums echoed across the Central Business District as dancers moved shoulder to shoulder beneath pine-lined streets, with spectators leaning over railings and filling sidewalks three-deep.

They gathered not just to watch a parade, but to witness a story unfold in motion.

As of 10 am, the Baguio City Police Office estimated around 40,300 spectators lining the Grand Street Dance Parade route from South Drive through Session Road and Harrison Road up to Burnham Park. The turnout reflects how Panagbenga, now in its 30th year, remains deeply personal to the city that created it.

Long before the costumes and choreography, Panagbenga began as recovery.

Before the bloom

There was a Baguio before Panagbenga, remembered for its order, discipline, and cool mountain calm. Known nationwide as the Summer Capital of the Philippines and a Hall of Famer in the National Clean and Green Program, the city thrived on community life. Families rowed boats in Burnham Park, civic parades marched along Session Road, and school bands animated public celebrations.

Beneath that formal image, however, lived the deeper pulse of the Cordillera. Ibaloi and Kankanaey traditions of weaving, ritual, dance, music, and storytelling quietly shaped the city’s cultural foundation. Baguio was never merely a mountain retreat; it was already a community rooted in living culture.

The rupture

Everything changed on July 16, 1990, when a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Northern Luzon, leaving Baguio one of the hardest-hit cities.

Buildings collapsed, roads fractured, and familiar landmarks disappeared overnight, plunging the city into days marked by dust, uncertainty, and grief.

What endured were its people. Neighbors rescued strangers, communities shared food and shelter, and rebuilding became collective work, slow and difficult, but shared.

When healing took form

Five years later, resilience found expression in something unexpected: flowers.

Led by the late Atty. Damaso Bangaoet Jr. through the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation Inc., the city launched a festival aimed at restoring hope while reviving tourism and local livelihoods. It was called Panagbenga, a Kankanaey word meaning “season of blooming.”

What began as healing soon evolved into identity. Streets once marked by disaster filled again with music and dance, while floral floats became symbols of renewal. Each year, communities returned not only to celebrate, but to remember how far they had come.

History in motion

This year’s Grand Street Dance Parade placed that history at the center through The Eras of Panagbenga, a thematic presentation tracing Baguio’s journey from pre-earthquake life to recovery and global recognition.

Performers from the University of Baguio, University of the Philippines Baguio, Saint Louis University, and Baguio City National High School’s Special Program in the Arts transformed the parade route into a moving timeline, blending dance, theater, and music to retell the city’s past.

The presentation culminated in Baguio’s 2017 designation as a UNESCO Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art, recognition that creativity nurtured in the highlands carries meaning far beyond its borders.

Many stories, one street

Contingents from across Northern Luzon added their own narratives to the celebration, presenting harvest rituals from Ifugao, agricultural traditions from Pangasinan and Nueva Ecija, and indigenous dances from Ilocos and La Union communities.

ach performance echoed everyday life — farming, mourning, thanksgiving, survival, and unity — turning the parade route into shared ground where cultures met not only in competition, but also in recognition.

Celebration and responsibility

Department of Public Works and Highways Secretary Vince Dizon, attending Panagbenga for the first time as guest of honor, reminded festivalgoers that celebration carries civic responsibility.

“Habang tayo ay nagdiriwang at nagbubloom ang mga bulaklak dito sa Baguio City,” he said, “Huwag nating kakalimutan ang ating civic responsibility na bantayan ang ating gobyerno at ang paggastos ng pera ng bayan.”

(As we celebrate and the flowers bloom here in Baguio City, let us not forget our civic responsibility to keep watch over our government and how public funds are spent.)

Still blooming

Thirty years after its founding, Panagbenga has grown beyond tourism or spectacle. It has become remembrance made visible. Courageous survival performed in public, year after year.

From the ruins of 1990 to international recognition today, Baguio stands as proof that recovery can become culture, and culture can endure.

One city. One spirit. Still blooming for its people, for the country, and for the world. – Rappler.com