The festival, held in February, was created as a tribute to the city's flowers and as a way to rise from devastation of the 1990 Luzon earthquake.

[4] The City of Baguio was known for its flowers, but most of these actually come from nearby La Trinidad, the provincial capital of the province of Benguet.

[4] By the end of 1996, archivist and curator Ike Picpican suggested that the festival be renamed Panagbenga, a Kankanaey term that means "a season of blossoming, a time for flowering".

[5] The Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), in collaboration with the John Hay Poro Point Development Corporation's (JPDC)[7] annual Camp John Hay Art Contest, gave its official logo from one of the entries: a spray of indigenous sunflowers from an artwork submitted by Trisha Tabangin, a student of the Baguio City National High School.

[15] Activities celebrated throughout the month include a landscape competition and cultural shows; street dancing and float parades during the last week of February draw huge crowds.