In honor of the true heroes and heroines of Panagbenga

I have heard stories in the past of the sacrifices of the nameless thousands of pupils and students, but it’s only now that our family experienced first-hand how much these youngsters go through to make the annual Baguio Flower Festival a success.

After graduating elementary last year, our daughter applied for and was accepted in the Baguio City National High School Special Program for the Arts for dance and their group form part of the contingent that is currently preparing to take center stage along Session Road in today’s street-dancing parade. Yes, I write this watching the live coverage of ongoing parade on television where I thought I’d have a better chance of catching a glimpse of my daughter in her Kalinga-costume than squeezing in between the throngs of people lining up the city’s main thoroughfare.

Initial preparations started late last year for their group, I believe, and as soon as the first day of class after the holidays, rehearsals went into full gear. Costume and props requirements were given, and the hunt for materials all over town began. It wasn’t easy for our daughter who also belonged to the Baguio Futsal Team to the 2014 CARAA having to work both on her part in the dance and attend training and practice sessions with her futsal team. This actually resulted in an overnight stay at a hospital due to over-fatigue.

As this day drew nearer, the stress level rose dramatically. The main prop, an umbrella covered made to look like a flower using supposedly recycled plastic bags (I’ll write about this in length in next week’s column) soon deteriorated after so many rehearsals and some needed to be repaired while others needed to be replaced altogether. My wife made a slight mistake with the arrangement of the beads attached to the headdress, that too had to be redone.

Three days before the parade date, we received a waiver that we needed to sign: the contingent will have to stay overnight in school the next day so that they can be there to serve as a backdrop for a major network’s early morning news program. I was hesitant to sign it – why have hundreds of young students, after rehearsing all day, at times under the sun, and late into the night, sleep on makeshift beds towards midnight to be roused before 4:00am so this network can rake in extra hundreds of thousands in advertising revenues for the scoop that is having hundreds of students in colourful costumes dancing in the background? After discussing it with our daughter, we decided to let her go.

So there, they finished rehearsals close to midnight. Some of them had to stay up to repair their props while the rest tried to get some rest. Before 4:00am, they were up, putting on their costumes, make-up before making their way to Burnham Park on foot. They were scheduled to finish by 9:00am, but just as I was getting ready to pick her up, she called and said that when they get back to the campus, they will be rehearsing one more time before calling it a day. By this time, she’s had only a couple of hours’ sleep in the last 30 hours.

I pick her up at 10:30am and as soon as we got home, she laid down on the couch and was asleep in an instant. I tried to wake her up for lunch, but she was just too tired.

Day of the parade, call was at 4:00am, and here I am today, waiting for her group to come on TV, and there she is, somewhere along South Drive waiting for their turn as my wife waits for her somewhere along Upper Session Road.

Much print space and radio and TV airtime were spent on the issues surrounding the staging of the annual festival, including the apparent rift between the City Government and the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation, Inc. (BFFFI), allow me to take advantage of this column to honor the thousands of pupils and students who make great sacrifices to make Panagbenga the success that it is today. Mabuhay kayong lahat! Ignore the conflict between the powers-that-be that revolves mainly around money, you are the true heroes and heroines of this festival.