
GUIGUINTO, Bulacan—This garden capital of the country continues to bloom as it celebrates this year its 27th Halamanan Festival from January 18-22.
Flower and plants-like costumes of nearly a thousand school children and the greening floats of all the fourteen barangays, the municipal government and private company partners turned the major streets of the town into garden-like surroundings and atmosphere as the weeklong program kicked-off on Saturday.
Mayor Atty. Agatha Paula Cruz and his father, Bulacan Fifth District Rep. Ambrosio Cruz Jr., and other key officials and leaders graced the “Indakan sa Kalye” street dancing and the “Parada ng Karosa” that signals the opening of the festival from San Miguel Corporation compound in Barangay Sta. Cruz to the municipal parish church and the municipal grounds in Barangay Ilang-Ilang and Poblacion.
Among the highlights of this year’s weeklong programs are the grand showdown of the street dance on Saturday night at the municipal oval, the plant and garden, landscape, dish garden competition, bird show, dog fashion show dubbed as “Pawshion Show,” trade fair plant “bagsak presyo,” bonsai competition, “Bulaklak sa Halamanan,” “Hari at Reyna,” concert, municipal scholars gathering and the mayor’s “Ulat sa Bayan”.
According to the mayor, this year’s Halamanan Festival, similar to the previous ones, remains to be a grandeur event because it honors and gives recognition to the plant and garden industry which had given Guiguinto its own identity and pride for the 27th year today.
Guiguinto’s plant industry with more than 200 garden and stall-owners and more than 100 nursery and growers had further grown in full bloom and had reached its full potential over the recent years since Rep. Cruz established the Halamanan Festival in 1998.
The congressman who was then elected as first time mayor of the town began the Halamanan Festival as Guiguinto’s own and distinct cultural and economic identity. Before that, Guiguinto had not been known for any product or identity.
According to the congressman, Guiguinto since the 1960’s has been the center of ornamental plants in Bulacan. 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 grown full blown in the Cloverleaf area in Tabang, in Violeta Village and Rosaryville subdivision in Sta. Cruz and in other key areas, and yet, the town has no identity.
Many of these garden stalls owners were from Hagonoy town but the worsening floods in their town have made them transfer their industry to the higher and elevated town of Guiguinto.
Cruz begun the Halamanan Festival in 1998 not only to give Guiguinto its own respective identity, but to also promote the industry by supporting the garden owners and make their plant industry a fully blossom and bloomed business in Bulacan.
Since then, the garden industry in Guiguinto had earned for the town the brand as the “Garden Capital of the country,” the mayor said.
Mayor Cruz estimated the garden industry in Guiguinto to have reached P1-billion in worth as individual players go as far as the 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 the continued flowering of the business and economy in the town,” the mayor said.
Ellen Torres-Santiago, owner of Ellen’s Garden told NEWSCORE that their plant industry has remained blooming over the years, but sales have not been the same after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2022. The garden industry in Guiguinto was more than triple the success of the sales today as people in many places in the country turned their attention in their respective homes in growing plants and gardening while restrictions and lockdown were enforced.
“It will not be the same anymore, it was the pandemic time that gave us that rake in sales. But, we would not want another pandemic. Today, while sales and the industry as a whole continue to bloom, there are lean months in the industry that leave very small sales and earnings. We implore strategies to promote our plants and our garden skills. We do our own respective ways,” she told Inquirer.
Santiago only sent her children to participate in the feast as she is in Metro Manila for a business transaction.
She thanked the municipal government of Guiguinto for continuously helping the plant growers and promoting the plant industry of the town.
“This business which I learned from my father twenty years ago has sent my children to universities and this will continue to serve several more generations in the future. Thank you to our leaders and to each and every member who never gives up in all the challenges and trials in the industry,” she added.