29th Masskara Festival & 70th Charter Day Anniversary of Bacolod City

For us Negrenses, the most awaited month is October because of the celebration of the Philippines’ most colorful Masskara Festival held in Bacolod City. “Masskara” is a portmanteau of the words, mass meaning many or crowd and cara meaning face. The festival’s symbolic feature is the colorful smiling mask worn by the dancers. Thus, Bacolod City bears the nickname, “City of Smiles”.

The Masskara Festival started in 1980 when Negros Occidental is in the time of tragedy and economic crisis; April 22 of that year, Don Juan, a vessel carrying many Negrenses, collided with the tanker Tacloban City and sank, also the sugar industry continued to slump (sugar cane as the province’s primary agricultural crop). The festival is a declaration of survival of the Negrenses that no matter how tough and bad the times were, they are going to live on and in the end, triumph. The people live up to the Masskara tagline, “Sige Lang, Sige Na.. Bacolod Bato Kita!” (It’s ok, it’s alright. Bacolod, fight on!)
On October 1, 2008, Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo officially opened the 19-day celebration of the 29th Masskara Festival with the theme, “Bacolod, City of the World” at the Bacolod City Public Plaza. This is a very historical event since it is the first time that a Philippine president graced the opening ceremonies.

Other events to look forward to are: Street dancing competition on October 16-18, the Electric Masskara along Lacson Street on October 17-19 and Search for Masskara Queen - Coronation Night on October 18.

The 29th Masskara Festival will be celebrated this year together with the 70th Charter Day Anniversary on October 19, 2008 when Bacolod was established as a city. An expected giant street party keeps vigil on October 18 which will be simultaneously held at Araneta and Lacson Streets as countdown starts 70 seconds to midnight and at 12mn the people sings happy birthday to Bacolod.