Baguio City — Some 7,000 residents and foreign and domestic tourists participated in the centennial parade held Tuesday in this mountain resort city.

The traditional civic-military parade started at the Baguio Convention Center, passed through the city’s main streets and ended at the famous Baguio Athletic Bowl.

The parade was highlighted by the performance of a group, called the 100 Dancers with 100 Steps. This drew the attention of the spectators on Session Road, Magsaysay Ave. and Harrison Road and in the Athletic Bowl.

The city’s centennial celebration with the theme, “Fostering a Culture of Caring”, took an international color with the participation of Baguio’s six sister cities in Japan, Guam, China, Korea, Canada, and the US, and its 22 sister cities in the Philippines.

The city’s business establishments, institutions, and streets were decorated with flowers and signs depicting the centennial logo. This was intended to keep the centennial spirit alive up to the end of this year.

In the past 1,000 days, the city government and the Baguio Centennial Commission had been busy to make the city’s centennial celebration a memorable one.

Historians recounted that Baguio City was a former hill station in a mountain plateau which was founded by the Americans as a rest and recreation center, but it was declared a chartered city on Sept. 1, 1909.

President Arroyo and United States Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie A. Kenney were supposed to be the city’s guests at Tuesday’s centennial parade, but they were not able to make it due to pressing commitments.

After the five-hour civic-military parade which was participated in by hundreds of groups and institutions in Baguio and neighboring places, city officials inaugurated the centennial marker at the Botanical Garden.

The marker symbolizes the contribution of the 100 Builders of Baguio to the development of the city in the past 100 years. It serves as a memorial for the individuals, companies, and institutions who had helped in one way or another in the development of this mountain resort city into what it is today -- a highly urbanized mountain area.