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[av_heading heading=’No more confusion on MassKara fest’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
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Sunday, May 28, 2017
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BACOLOD City – To avoid confusing tourists and visitors, MassKara Festival was assigned a fixed date like Cebu’s Sinulog and Iloilo’s Dinagyang.
The certainty of the date – every fourth Sunday of October – will further strengthen, promote, and expand the festival’s impact in tourism, according to Councilor Em Ang, chairperson of committee on tourism in the Sangguniang Panlungsod.
This new date will be observed beginning this year.
This permanent schedule of the festival will allow people across the world, including Bacolodnons living abroad, to set their MassKara vacation in advance, Ang said.
Previously in City Ordinance 33, Series of 1987, the MassKara Festival was set one week before Oct. 19, former date of Bacolod City’s Charter Day.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia welcomed the setting of the permanent schedule of the MassKara highlights.
This will establish MassKara Festival as a truly world-class tourist attraction, he added.
In previous years, Oct. 19 was marked as the city’s Charter Day but it was eventually confirmed that such was not the right date but June 18 based on the law signed by then President Manuel L. Quezon.
The word “MassKara” is a portmanteau, coined by the late artist Ely Santiago from “mass” (a multitude of people), and the Spanish word “cara” (face), thus forming “MassKara” (a multitude of faces).
The word is also a pun on maskara, Filipino for “mask” (itself from Spanish “mascara”), since a prominent feature of the festival are the masks worn by participants, which are always adorned with smiling faces.
The festival first began in 1980 during a period of crisis. Negrenses relied on sugar cane as primary agricultural crop, and the price of sugar was at an all-time low due to the introduction of sugar substitutes like high fructose (corn syrup) in the United States. This was the first Masskara Festival and a time of tragedy; on April 22 of that year, the inter-island vessel MV Don Juan carrying many Negrenses, including those belonging to prominent families in Bacolod City, collided with the tanker Tacloban City and sank. An estimated 700 lives were lost in the tragedy.
In the midst of these tragic events, the city’s artists, local government and civic groups decided to hold a festival of smiles. They reasoned that a festival was also a good opportunity to pull the residents out of the pervasive gloomy atmosphere. (PNA)
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