BAGUIO CITY, PHILIPPINES– IBAGIW, Baguio’s foremost creative festival, is programmed to open on November 6 at the Baguio Convention Center through a creatively bursting multi-sensory launching presentation.
As announced by the Ibagiw organizing committee led by retired national tourism official Marie Venus Quinto-Tan, an Ibagiw Kapihan will be held two dayBaguis earlier by the event organizers with the city’s and region’s working media to presage the Grand Opening Program in the same venue.
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City Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong is confident that based on initial preparation reports, the privately driven annual creativefest, again set for November, Baguio is ready in getting its calendar of creatively curated art and cultural activities off the ground on their respective launching and execution period.
Last week, the Mayor declared the full month of November as Ibagiw Creative Festival Month and assigned its community-wide celebration to the Council for Baguio Creative City and the Baguio Arts and Crafts Collective, Inc., with the city government serving a primary supportive role.
“We must showcase how confident we are in our continuing effort to push forward Baguio’s readiness to activate community-supported events that will present resiliency and recovery as we sustain initiatives that keep everyone out of harm’s way,” Magalong said, adding that he looks forward in seeing this year’s Ibagiw as a well-presented celebration done in compliance with health and safety protocols.
As disclosed by Marie Venus Quinto Tan, the Ibagiw 2020 Festival Director, the project managers tasked to execute the programmed events expressed confidence that this year’s activities will run their course without hitches. “Our artists and artisans are participating in events and competitions precisely to show vastly upgraded skills in their art works and installations,” she said.
The Ibagiw project managers expressed eagerness to launch Ibagiw 2020, pointing out how community-driven activities will attest to the resiliency of Baguio citizens, most especially its artists and artisans. “We want to show everyone that Baguio is rising on the back of an energized spirit for the creative sector to resume income-inducing activities, to get back jobs, retrieve livelihoods, and bring businesses to heightened normalcy.”
The group commended the initiative in green-lighting the city’s annual creative festival which has drawn public recognition since 2017, when the United Nations made Baguio a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network for Crafts and Folk Arts.
“With the active support of the city government, we can bring together this community celebration of creativity at its finest, auspicious at a time when we need to see renewed hopes for a better future,” said Quinto-Tan, the retired tourism official also said.
The Ibagiw 2020 Creative City Festival will run from November 6 to 30, under strictly regulated health and safety protocols as primordial guidance in staging several carefully curated events and activities. Artists, artisans, creative and tourism workers direly affected by the pandemic will take part in the various events to showcase their finest works either for virtual viewing or for competitive contests.
The Contemporary Arts Exhibit and Art in the Park will present Baguio’s visual artists and their masterpieces. Artisans and crafters share their innovative crafts and products during the Crafts Competition and Mandeko Kito: An Artisans’ Fair.
The Woodcarving Competition shows off the most creative woodcarvers and their handiworks. Weaving, another Cordilleran cultural heritage, takes its own stellar attraction through the launch of Children’s Storybooks on Weaving.
Carefully chosen and organized with the new normal in mind, there are also Creative and Garden Crawls that the public, in limited in-person gatherings, can participate in, to rediscover the Baguio they know and love. Festival organizers have assured city folks and visitors alike that all activities and events will be done on virtual internet linkages, while the Grand Opening and Closing Program will be livestreamed, under mandated health and safety protocols put in place by the local government.
“We shall not leave anything to chance, focused as we are in rallying our community towards a well-balanced setting where health and economic needs are carefully weighed in, without exposing anyone to health risk. That is why much of the festival’s offering shall be done and viewed in a virtual setting,” Quinto-Tan emphasized.
The EO also outlines the roles of various city government offices, such as the City Tourism Office, the City Environment and Parks Management Office, the City Buildings and Architecture Office, the General Services Office and the Public Information Office in the conduct of the Festival. The Baguio City Police Office is tasked to come with an Operations Plan for traffic management and security.
National government agencies operating in the city have also been requested to extend as much support and assistance that will provide road access for tour packages that may be arranged as part of preparations for the influx of tourists and travelers from areas other than Region 1.
Baguio has started to accept incoming visitors from the highland provinces, Region 2, 3, NCR on October 22.
