Panagbenga Festival

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Panagbenga Festival (Ilocano pronunciation: [pɐnɐgˈbɯŋaˈ]) (transl. Flower Festival) is a month-long annual flower occasion in Baguio, Philippines. The term is of Kankanaey origin, meaning "season of blooming". The festival, held in February, was created as a tribute to the city's flowers and as a way to rise from the devastation of the 1990 Luzon earthquake. The festival includes floats that are covered mostly with flowers, not unlike those used in Pasadena's Rose 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 Cordilleras.

The Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), in collaboration with the John Hay Poro Point Development Corporation's (JPDC) annual Camp John Hay Art Contest, gave its official logo from one of the entries: a spray of indigenous sunflowers from an artwork submitted by Trisha Tabangin, a student of the Baguio City National High School. The festival was set in February to boost tourism as it was considered as a time 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 Panagbenga, a Kankanaey term that means "a season of blossoming, a time for flowering".

Panagbenga festivities were cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Celebrations returned in March 2022 with limited events that were exclusively funded by private donors, as government funds were directed towards ongoing COVID relief. All festival events, including street dancing and float parades, resumed in full in 2023.

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