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"Nindota
kaming ihaya sa Bacolod kay morag pang internationa", (That bacolod
is beautiful and seems to be of international standards) quipped a
Boholano in the street.
The Bacolod MassKara Festival contingent once
more earned the raves and "ohs" of a huge crowd of
Boholanos and their local and foreign guests during Bohol's biggest annual
event which is the Sandugo Festival held last July 24, 2005 in Tagbiliran
City.
Led by Bacolod City Mayor Evelio R. Leonardia,
city councilors Homer Bais, Dindo Ramos, Jude Thaddeus Sayson and Jocelle
Sigue, the MassKara group that showed its form were contingents from
Barangay Villamonte, Barangay 23 and Barangay Alijis who were the top
winners in last year's Masskara street dance competition.
The crowd in the major streets of Tagbiliran City
and the audience at the Carlos P. Garcia. Memorial Stadim which has a
capacity of almost twenty thousand seemed to agree that Bacolod's MassKara
differed and was far more superior than any of the other four festival
contingents that were invited by the City of Tagbilaran.
The Sandugo Festival of Bohol celebrates the
historical blood compact between the Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de
Legaspi and Bohol's Sultan Sikatuna as a truce of friendship that is why
this year's Sandugo has the theme "Reaching Out to Friends and
Neighbors".
Tagbilaran City Mayor Dan Lim said that the
Sandugo Foundation had decided to bring to Bohol the five major festivals
of the Visayas in order to afford their people to see these festivals
without going out of their backyard especially for those who could not
afford to travel.
The five Visayas contingents to the Sandugo
Festival were the MassKara Festival of Bacolod, Mantawi Festival of
Mandaue City, Yagyag Festival of the Province of Negros Oriental, the
Ati-atihan Festival of Kalibo and the Dinagyang of Iloilo City. (CMO/PIO/isk/osb)
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