MassKara 2022:Smiling masks in the ‘City of Smiles’
Like Iloilo where my family and I once lived, Bacolod always brings a smile to my face. Smiles, in fact. I love its people, its food (Abaw gid!) and its history.
True to its moniker the “City of Smiles,” Bacolod has a festival of masks aptly named “MassKara” — but the masks have smiles. No sad faces, no Money Heist type of masks. Just masks that lift the corners of one’s lips and one’s heart.
“MassKara” is a portmanteau. According to online sources, it was 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). A portmanteau of an English word and a Spanish word that spawned a very Filipino portmanteau.
“MassKara” also sounds like maskara, Filipino for “mask” (just like Spanish mascara, not the eyelash wonder). These smiling masks reportedly gave rise to Bacolod being called the “City of Smiles.” With or without masks.
Historical sources say the festival was born in 1980, a time of extreme want and heartbreaking suffering for the majority of its people who relied on sugarcane for sustenance and survival. At the time, the price of sugar was at an all-time low. Then another tragedy struck. 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 in Tablas Strait off Mindoro while en route from Manila to Bacolod, which resulted in 18 lives lost, and 115 missing.
In the midst of these events, the local government then headed by the late Mayor Jose “Digoy” Montalvo enjoined the city’s artistic community, civic and business groups to hold a “festival of smiles.”
In that time of tragedy beyond words, Negrenses took to wearing masks, not just to mask their grief but also to rise above it. How could you not with a mask — a face — that never frowns?
That permanent smile, though painted on masks, was contagious. The initial festival was held during the city’s Charter Day celebration on Oct. 19, 1980 and was steered by a committee created by City Hall. The city resolved to survive and comfort the grief-stricken with smiles — and a fiesta. Like our Latin counterparts, Filipinos think of fiestas as the glue that brings people together, not just in revelry but also in fervor.
The festival evolved into one of the major annual tourism attractions of the Philippines over the next four decades. Held in typical Oktoberfest and Mardi Gras fashion, the MassKara Festival jumpstarted the development of the city’s tourism, hospitality, culinary, crafts and souvenirs and services sectors. Smiles were translated into survival.
In later years, the Electric MassKara was added as another attraction of the Festival. For several nights leading to the highlight weekend, tribes of MassKara dancers garbed in colorful neon and LED lights on illuminated floats make their way up and down the one-kilometer long Lacson Strip. It would be pulsating with music and merrymaking, and dotted with souvenir stands, bars and food stalls.
Beer consumption during the festival is so high that at one time, the city reportedly ran out of beer!
The MassKara festival started at a time of crisis and disaster in the 1980s, not unlike the past two years when a pandemic claimed lives and livelihoods. Negrenses needed to smile again and put on their smiling masks.
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It takes an incisive businessman to bring Bacolod City to greater heights, and newly elected Mayor Albee Benitez deserves recognition with the success of the recently concluded 23-day MassKara Festival. The “City of Smiles” erupted with more smiles. City Hall is confident more investments will pour into the city after it came back with a bang during the recent festival.
Benitez expects that revenues for the festival will exceed their target of P5 billion, with the fully booked hotels in and around Bacolod during its duration. Not only that, the three-week-long festival actually saw a surge in visitors, with airlines increasing their daily flights.
Business confidence was so high that leading to the celebration, mega warehouse clubs’ Landers and S & R announced that they were headed to Bacolod. Landers will be located in the upper-scale township development of Megaworld while S & R will establish theirs in a reclaimed lot leased from the city government.
Megaworld’s support cannot be overemphasized with no less than Kevin Tan joining the festivities and opening the newest and grandest McDonald’s in the country at The Upper East in time for the festival.
Of course it helped that President Bongbong Marcos, his wife Liza and sons Rep. Sandro and Vinny graced the festival upon the invitation of Mayor Albee, and MassKara honorary chair Jojie Dingcong. Both are close friends of the family. The latest update is Jojie has been immediately reappointed by Mayor Albee to be co-terminus with him as honorary chair. Jojie is a spark that generates smiles himself.
Jojie said the vision for the festival is going to be bigger, “more globally focused to encourage tourism.”
Mayor Albee delivered on his promise to make the 43rd MassKara Festival one of the grandest Bacolod has ever seen by coming up with seven festival sites, including a partnership with the provincial government that opened up its Panaad complex to ensure that visitors and locals alike can savor the sights, sounds, and flavor of Bacolod and Negros Occidental.
“The challenge now is how to top this festival with a bigger one and, based on the arrivals of tourism officers from other provinces to observe how it was conducted, the race is on as to who can surpass the achievement of Mayor Albee,” says Jojie.
The Bacolod police reported zero crime incidents during the entire festival; kudos to the people of Bacolod.
At a time when masks are no longer mandatory in many places, especially outdoors and workplaces, we can say the spirit of the MassKara mask of smiles should be mandatory.
Abaw gid!
(You may e-mail me at [email protected]. Follow me on Instagram @joanneraeramirez.)
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