‘Halamanan’ fest blooms anew in Bulacan town
GUIGUINTO, BULACAN—Streets in this town bloomed again with green plants and colorful blossoms as school children dressed in flower and plant costumes danced at the kick-off of the 27th Halamanan Festival on Saturday.
Mayor Agatha Paula Cruz and her father, Bulacan Fifth District Rep. Ambrosio Cruz Jr., led the activity attended by close to 2,000 school children participants in the street dancing event that also featured floats from 14 villages.
The “Parada ng Karosa” and “Indakan sa Kalye,” which opened the festival, started from San Miguel Corporation compound in Barangay Sta. Cruz to the municipal parish church and the municipal grounds in Barangays Ilang-Ilang and Poblacion.
The weeklong event would include a grand showdown of the street dance on Saturday night at the municipal oval; the holding of the plant and garden, landscape, dish garden competition; a bird show; a dog fashion show dubbed as “Pawshion Show;” a plant trade fair and bonsai competition dubbed “Bulaklak sa Halamanan” (flower in the garden); “Hari at Reyna” (king and queen) competition; a concert; municipal scholars gathering; and the mayor’s “Ulat sa Bayan” (town report).
Mayor Cruz told Inquirer that the 27th Halamanan Festival aimed to recognize one of the town’s top earners, its plant and flower industry.
Ornamental plants
She said the industry, now involving over 200 garden and stall owners and over 100 nursery and growers, grew and reached its full potential over the years since her father, then the town mayor, established the Halamanan Festival in 1998.
The older Cruz, on Saturday, recalled that Guiguinto has been a known source of ornamental plants in Bulacan since the 1960s.
Currently, there are stalls along the Tabang entry exit of the North Luzon Expressway, then known as the North Diversion Road, while business stalls and gardens have sprouted in the Cloverleaf area in Tabang, in Violeta Village and Rosaryville subdivision in Sta. Cruz and in other key areas.
Many of the garden stalls owners were from Hagonoy but the worsening floods in their town made them located to the elevated town of Guiguinto.
Over the years, the Halamanan Festival has earned for Guiguinto the “garden capital of the country” brand, the mayor said.
Mayor Cruz estimated the garden industry in Guiguinto to be now worth P1 billion as individual players from the town have reached locations in Visayas and Mindanao to do landscape designs, help in the architectural works of buildings and homes through artistic plant designs.
“The 27th year Halamanan Festival today symbolizes the realization of the dream of each of the people in Guiguinto to make their town be known as the haven of plants and gardens and (it symbolizes) the continued flowering of the business and economy in the town,” the mayor said.
Post-pandemic decline
Ellen Torres-Santiago, owner of Ellen’s Garden, said their plant industry has remained blooming over the years, but sales have not been the same since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022.
The garden industry in Guiguinto saw sales tripled during the pandemic years, as people in the country turned to growing plants in their homes amid movement restrictions brought about by lockdowns.
She recalled that during the pandemic, her daily sale would ranged from P10,000 to P15,000. Now, she said, she would earn P2,000 per day and would, at times, only get P200 on her slowest days.
Despite the decline, Torres-Santiago said they still would not want another pandemic.
She thanked the Guiguinto municipal government for continuously helping the plant growers and promoting the plant industry of the town.
“This business, which I learned from my father 20 years ago, has sent my children to universities and this will continue to serve several more generations in the future,” she added in a phone interview Saturday.
