A FEW Thursdays ago, we almost hugged the clouds via a hot-air balloon. But ours ran out of butane, the main fuel of the humongous balloon. No, we didn’t transform into hot-headed baboons because our hot-air balloon didn’t even leave the ground.

Then again, watching the spectacle of all things that fly was worth the heat of the scorching sun and the slight frustration of not riding a balloon. But we’re getting ahead of the story.

On its 12th year, the Philippine Hot-Air Balloon Festival, held from February 7 to 10 at the Clark Freeport Zone, brought in around 200,000 tourists from all over the Philippines.

“All hotels and inns were fully booked. For the whole region, we had about more than 400,000 visitors—all because of the hot-air balloon festival,” Ronaldo Tiotuico, Department of  Tourism’s regional director for Central Luzon, told the BusinessMirror.

Twenty-one balloons from all over the world participated in the festival. Each balloon was flown by foreign pilots from their respective countries, namely, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, England, Sweden, Hungary, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea. The most visually attractive balloons were an octopus from Japan and a tiger from Germany.
It must be said that the pilots didn’t go here on their balloons.  They were flown in by the event’s major sponsor, UPS.

Contrary to common misconception, UPS has nothing to do with uninterrupted power supply. UPS stands for United Parcel Service, which is considered the world’s largest package-delivery company, delivering more than 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. UPS celebrated its centennial last year. 

UPS’s Intra-Asia hub is located in Clark.

The four-day festival was not all about balloons. All things that fly had a demo in the vast airfield. Consider the sky as a vast stage where sky divers, helicopters, ultralight fly-in and small airplanes alternated in entertaining the crowd. There were contests like two planes in a balloon-bursting competition (self-explanatory). There were also choreographed kite-flying demonstrations by the Kite Association of the Philippines.

On the ground, there were photo exhibits showing the history of Philippine aviation, side by side the real thing—model planes, guns, rescue boats, army jeeps, including real soldiers from the navy, army and the air force. There were booths manned by students of local aviation schools, where visiting high-school students or any enthusiast could choose where and what to study, be it for a career or a hobby.

What made this year’s competition unique was the “Clarksiyahan,” held at the CDC Parade Grounds. It’s a series of smorgasbord activities that included drag racing, bikini open competition, spelling quiz bee, interschool street dancing and a fashion show.

Ready to give information on all things related to flying is a pioneer of the festival, the flight enthusiast and festival coordinator Jon Roa. He told the BusinessMirror that compared with other festivals abroad, this year’s festival is meant to showcase Filipino hospitality.

“Every country has a different outlook on hot-air balloons. In England they are bothered by the balloons because they startle their horses, their dogs bark endlessly. Then again, festivals there usually gather about 120 balloons. In North America the festivals are held in the Indian reserves so they have Indians carrying their balloons. Iba-iba. In Japan and Paris about 120 balloons participate in each festival.

“Here in the Philippines, our farmers wave at the pilots, inviting them to come down and have some photo-ops and merienda perhaps. So ganun. We are a different audience. We love balloons,” Roa said.

In this year’s local festival, the 21 participants competed in a Hare-and-Hound game, where, Roa explained, 20 balloons played hound to one hare. There was no prize money, just trophies for three winners.

Roa said, “We’d like to increase the numbers of balloons. But we can only do so much. We’re hoping for more government support, for the Department of Tourism to wake up. Good thing we have sponsors from the private sector like UPS. They’ve been helping us for many years. We’re hoping to reach a hundred balloons in future festivals.”

Indeed, nowhere to go but UPS.

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A FEW Thursdays ago, we almost hugged the clouds via a hot-air balloon. But ours ran out of butane, the main fuel of the humongous balloon. No, we didn’t transform into hot-headed baboons because our hot-air balloon didn’t even leave the ground.

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