Smiling Masskara
Photo by wantet.

Masskara is a combination of two words – the English word mass meaning many or multitude and the Spanish word kara which in English means face. Masskara is also the dialect for the English word “mask”.

Every October Bacolod City, also known as the City of Smiles, celebrates the Masskara Festival. The festival’s highlight is the streetdancing which is held on the weekend nearest to the City’s Charter day on October 19.

Dancers wearing colorful costumes and smiling masks parade down the streets and dance to a Latin beat theme song. Unlike the Sinulog Festival (which is held in Cebu every 3rd Sunday of January) wherein there is live beating and playing of the drums the Masskara festival is different.There is no live beating and playing of the drums instead huge speakers are set up in the side of streets of the parade route. All contingents dance to the same beat from start to finish.

Masskara
Photo by wantet.

The Masskara parade route is much shorter compared to Sinulog parade route. I’m sure this is a very welcome idea for the dancers however since the route is much shorter the crowd is not spread out and there is a tendency for the streets to be really overcrowded.

This was the 2nd Masskara festival I attended. The first time I saw it was in the year 1999, 6 yrs. ago. During that time it wasn’t that crowded compared to this year’s festival. It shows how the festival has grown since then. Visitors from other parts of the country as well as foreigners came to see the Masskara festival.

Souvenir Masskara
Photo by wantet.

I don’t usually buy souvenir items as they as they would just end up as junk in my room but I can’t help buying one for myself a masskara souvenir item. I just found it pretty cool to bring home. The masskara souvenir items were a big hit not only to foreign tourists but as well as to local tourists. They come in different colors and sizes. The smaller ones can be bought at around PhP50 while medium sized ones can be bought from PhP8-120. Bigger souvenir masks are sold as high as PhP500.

In my opinion there are still lot of things that needs to be improved to make the festival more interesting and organized but the essence why the festival is being celebrated should not be forgotten. The Masskara festival is a celebration and declaration that despite all the hardships the Bacolodnons have faced and will face in the future they will survive and succeed in the end.

More Masskara photos can be found in my Flickr site

St. Teresa de Avila
Photo by wantet.

Last Sunday woke up at about 9am and received a text message from Maning inviting me for a photoshoot in Talisay for their Halad Festival. It’s been awhile since I was last able to shoot so I was pretty excited to join him. I got out of bed and prepared myself. We met up at JY square mall before heading out to Talisay.

We arrived in Talisay city around 11am and had to walk in the SRP to get to their City Hall where the celebration was going to be held. The City Hall was kinda quiet when we arrived. We asked some vendors who were setting up their stalls and learned from them that the parade was not gonna start until 2pm.

An offering for St. Theresa
Photo by wantet.

It was almost 12 noon and we were hungry from all the walking we did. We decided to have lunch in Gaisano Tabunok and we were in time for the parade when we finished our lunch. We headed to the church where the parade was starting. The dancers of the different contingents were already converging in the church grounds and starting to prepare for the streetdancing.

There were only about 8 or 9 contingents taking part in the streetdancing. From the Church they danced their way to the Talisay City Hall passing by SRP. Each contingent then presented in front of the crowd in the City Hall grounds.

Halad Festival Finale
Photo by wantet.

Aside from the dancing there was also an Inasal Parade. Talisay City is known for it’s tasty lechon thus the Inasal Parade. Lechon, in different sizes and costumes were paraded. One that particularly caught my attention was the lechon being paraded in a stretcher with a dextrose. It was pretty hilarious. The emcee of the program commented that there’s no longer any need to worry about getting high blood for eating lechon as now it’s the lechon who’s being hospitalized. LOL!

The festival ended with some fireworks. The Halad Festival is not a big celebration like the Sinulog and the organizing commitee still needs to do a lot of work to make the festival more organized and interesting in the next coming years. Anyhow what’s important is the reason why the festival is being celebrated which is an offering for St. Theresa de Avila the patron saint of Talisay City.