Smile! It’s MassKara!

MANILA, Philippines — A festival born in the midst of tragedy and gloom has become one of the country’s major events, drawing thousands of local and foreign visitors to the genteel city of Bacolod, the capital of Negros Occidental province, in droves each October.

It’s a three-week party that culminates on the fourth Sunday of October with the grand MassKara parade and street dance competition. Schools, corporate and civic groups send contingents of brightly garbed, enthusiastic and energized dancers who stomp, shout, gyrate and shimmy with abandon behind their smiling face masks, the trademark of the festival and, indeed, of the city.

The highlight of the festival is held close to Oct. 19, the city’s foundation day. But in the days leading up to the grand finale, there is plenty of merrymaking to be enjoyed by all, residents and visitors alike. A beauty pageant to choose the MassKara Queen, concerts, trade fairs, garden shows, all sorts of competitions and an abundance of food and drink keep everyone satisfied and very, very merry.

The festival was first held in 1980, as the province’s economy reeled when the international price of sugar, the province’s main crop, dropped drastically due to the introduction of sweetener substitutes. Earlier that year, in April, a passenger ferry collided with a tanker, and among the estimated 700 lives lost were many Negrenses.

The festival – organized by the city’s artists, civic groups and local government – was an attempt to lift some of the gloom, to further the idea of Bacolod as the “City of Smiles,” thus a mask with a big smile was the order of the day. The term MassKara was reportedly coined by a local artist from “mass” as in a multitude of people and “cara,” Spanish for face. It is also a variation on the Filipino term for masks, maskara.

And so for 37 years running, the people of Bacolod have hosted this festival of smiles, each year a little louder and more exuberant than the year before, and always, with the widest, brightest and warmest smiles.