BAGUIO CITY – Local officials and organizers of the annual staging of the Panagbenga agreed that proper garbage disposal and effective and efficient traffic management are still major concerns that must be addressed appropriately in the future conduct of the city’s crowd-drawing event.
Anthony de Leon, co-chairman of the Panagbenga Executive Committee, said it was observed that spectators who attended the grand streetdancing and grand float parades over the weekend and those who stayed in the city’s parks have deliberately left behind their garbage despite the presence of garbage bins in strategic areas in the central business district area.
“It all boils down to the discipline of our people. Even if we have thousands of garbage bins around the city if the people do not know how to manage their garbage, then the garbage bins will not serve their purpose,” de Leon stressed.
He revealed the Panagbenga environment committee has over 200 volunteers from the various schools in the city aside from the employees of the City Environment and Parks Management Office (CEPMO) who are assigned in the parks and the streets but their combined efforts have not been enough to clean the garbage left behind by the people who attended the major highlights of the flower festival.
He underscored it will be very difficult on their part to adjust to the situation if the problem is the attitude and discipline of the people in the disposal of their garbage while attending similar crowd-drawing events.
De Leon claimed the installation of garbage bins and other waste disposal containers in all corners of the city will be useless if people do not know how to use them as they simply leave behind their garbage in the places have occupied while watching the festival highlights.
On their other hand, he added effective and efficient traffic management is also a major concern that should be continuously studied to allow motorists to freely roam around their desired destinations in the city after attending and witnessing the major highlights of the annual flower festival.
According to him, there is a need for the local government and the organizers to consider various options in the future relative to the closure of major city roads during major events lined up for the month-long flower festival to lessen its impact on the traffic around the central business district area.
He said people must learn to leave behind their vehicles in the hotels and transient houses where they are billoted and walk to their desired areas to view the two major parades to help lessen the monstrous traffic jams all over the city when people converged in the central business district area to witness the said activities.
De Leon said the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation Inc. (BFFFI) and the local government will continue to explore all possibilities to address the two major problems, garbage disposal and traffic management, that continue to be their headaches in the successful conduct of the city’s annual crowd-drawing event./By Dexter A. See#
