Marcos hails MassKara Festival return
Marcos said the return of the MassKara Festival after two years symbolized the ‘reemergence’ of the country from yet another crisis.
Daily TribuneMarcos said the return of the MassKara Festival after two years symbolized the ‘reemergence’ of the country from yet another crisis.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Sunday touted the return of Bacolod City's famous MassKara Festival as a symbol of further reopening of the country.
"It is a good thing to remind people that the pandemic may have been difficult, the pandemic really put us through the wringer but we are back," Marcos said at a luncheon at the Hacienda Bubog in Talisay City, Negros Occidental.
"The pandemic is fading away. We are learning to manage it and now it is time for us to all go back to work, to all go back to our normal lives, to remind ourselves of all the opportunities that were before us before the pandemic," he added.
The Chief Executive said the return of the world-renowned festival which was conceived in 1980 is a "perfect manifestation" of the mindset he was trying to tell to the public.
"It is what we have been trying to promote and that's why we have tried very hard to remind people that it is time again as I said to bring us back to where we were before and even to go further," Marcos said.
The President also encouraged the public to show resiliency, resourcefulness, and talent amid these trying times.
"Although things are difficult, there's no denying that, nonetheless it is time for us to go back and exercise once again, show once again the Filipino resilience, the Filipino resourcefulness, the Filipino industry, the Filipino talent," said the President.
"Let us show this to the world because the whole world is reopening, as well as the Philippines. The MassKara Festival is a celebration of the reopening of not only Bacolod but the rest of the country," he added.
Marcos said the return of the MassKara Festival after two years symbolized the "reemergence" of the country from yet another crisis.
"That is why the MassKara festival has taken on such a life of its own because once again, it is the symbol of our reemergence from a crisis, our reemergence from a very, very difficult time," Marcos said.
"That's what MassKara was created for and it has served its purpose doubly well in 2022 as we watch Bacolod, we watch the whole of Western Visayas, we watch the rest of the Philippines' reemergence once again into the sun," he added.
The annual celebration of the MassKara Festival started in 1980 following the collapse of sugar prices — the primary livelihood source — which resulted in massive unemployment and starvation in the Negros Occidental.
The same year, the MV Don Juan which carried at least 1,000 passengers sank off Tablas Straight after it collided with the PNCC tanker M/V Tacloban.
The local government unit created the MassKara Festival to uplift the spirits of the locals and bring back their smiles.
