Skipping Masskara Again

I have what you call someone who has a festival fatigue. I’m really sorry, but I don’t get excited to attend street fests anymore. Finding parking, the traffic, the crowd, not to mention the risk of losing your wallet in the sea of people. After already celebrating the same feasts year after year, I would rather happily stay home, and maybe watch the whole hullabaloo on TV. But then again, I don’t watch the boob tube that much. Hmmm...

Sometimes I wonder whether if it's really old age that is creeping and eating my joie de vivre?Yaiiks!!!

So when my sister said she would like to witness the Masskara Festival this October, I said yes and invited her family over, just to see what I have been missing for the last four years.

For those of you who have no idea what the Masskara Festival is all about, here is a little backgrounder.

Masskara was bourne out of the depression that gloomed over Bacolod City when the prices of sugar in the world market dived at an all-time depths in the 1980’s. With the sugar industry as the city’s main bread and butter, this economic dislocation was aggravated when passenger vessel Don Juan sank on April 22, where 700 Negrenses, including members of prominent familes, died.

The festival was the wake-up call to Bacolodnons from the pervading gloom and doom. Local government officials, civic groups, and artists decided to organize a festival that would show the fighting spirit of its people. The initial festival was a declaration of the city’s desire to rise up from the ashes and survive with a smile.  Masskara was coined from the words “mass”, which means “multitude”, and “kara”, a Spanish term, which means “face”. So what you see is a multitude of happy, smiling faces of the Bacolodnons.

Back to my story. In the end, we ended up not seeing anyone dancing with masks. We went to this AniMotion Cosplay Convention at 888 Event Center because of my niece, and stayed there until almost 9pm, so we decided to skip the Electric Masskara on Lacson Street. Boohoo:-(


We tried to look for masks just for the sake of saying we were there.

Ben and I at 888

Ben's family at the New Government Center

Oh, well. Maybe next time.