The treasure of Bacolod City

The light of a millon smile

by: 3rd/c. Lagang, Joemar D.
SWU maritime student


What started as "just a new activity" to spice up an otherwisese routine civic-military parade, awarding ceremonies and a literary-musical program for a city charter anniversary, Bacolod City's MassKara Festival is now 3 years short of its third decade and has already become of the entries of the Philippines to the global tourism community.
The MassKara Festival of Bacolod City has repeatedly represented the country in some major festivals in Asia, notably in the Chinggay Festival in Singapore in 1998, the Lunar Festival of Hong Kong in 2001, in the International Tourism Festival of Shanghai in 2004 and in the Midosuji Festival Parade of Osaka, Japan, emerging as champion in the foreign category and first runner-up in the local category - the first award to be given to a foreign participant in the 10-year history of that Japanese festival.
Among the Philippine festivals, MassKara is one that has also been to almost all major festivals in the Visayas and Luzon. mostly on exhibition performances. During the 23rd Asian Games held in Bacolod City in November 2005, the MassKara dance got the most applause from the athletes, visiting dignitaries and the international press covering the event.
The word MassKara has a double meaning. First, it is a fusion of the English word "mass" or many and "kara", the Spanish word for "face." MassKara then becomes a "mass of faces," and these faces have to be smiling to project Bacolod already known in the late 70's as the City of Smiles. MassKara also is the dialect "maskara" for the English word mask, which gives rise to the use of giant smiling masks in varied hues, colors and brilliance which the gaily costumed dancers wear as they stomp, swing, pulsate and gyrate in the major streets of the city every third weeded nearest to the 19th of October, which is the City Charter Anniversary of Bacolod.
The concept of combining the English word "mass" and the Spanish word "kara" is a mind product of the then Art Association of Bacolod president, the late Ely Santiago, with the support of the late city councilor chairman of the committee councilor on tourism, Romeo Geocadin and the then Negros Occidental Department of Tourism head and now city mayor of Bacolod, Atty. Evelio R. Leonardia, the concept has become a reality, with the city having her first MassKara Festival in 1981.
After two or three years, the MassKara would have died a natural death. But thanks to the tenacity of an Evelio R.Leonardia to lobby at the city council and to initiate the movement among tourism stakeholders, the festival moved on, year after year, despite political economic, natural or man-made impediments. Now, after 28 years, it has not only attained its recognized festival stature- as a national ANVIL awardee of the Philippine Public Relation Society - but also as one major tourism identity for Bacolod City.
Through the years, MassKara has evolved and has undergone a lot of changes from its attempt during its start in 1980 to be historical by portraying vignettes of Philippine history, to the time when it has become a symbol of survival, when the sugar industry as the lifeblood of the Bacolenos continued to plummet down.
The long years of affluence and abundance brought about by the sugar industry, with Bacolod as its center of trade and commerce, has made the Bacoleno a lover of the good life. He knows how to laugh heartily while his fine taste is seen in his cuisine, in dressing, the sports he indulges in and the kind of car his bulging pocket chooses. But beneath all these, he is also resilient because he knows how to take things in stride in times of crisis. He can still smile as sincerely as during the times of plenty. Decades after the backlash of the sugar industry, Bacolod now no longer depends on this cash crop and the Bacoleno still celebrates life along the mainstream of contemporary events, industry and technology.
The MassKara Festival is here to stay, an icon for Bacolod as the City of Smiles. Today, with the more than four hundred fifty thousand Bacolenos giving their warmest smiles, MassKara becomes a festival of a thousand smiles per minute, projecting the Bacoleno's ability to smile, to be gregarious and charming and to shoe his instinct to survive and triumph over trials and challenges. MassKara is not history nor is it anchored on any historical, religious or cultural event. Artistic, yes. MassKara is simply his story, that is the Bacoleno as a human being whose innate capacity for goodness, happiness and beauty is expressed in the sights, sounds, color and rhythm of a people celebrating the might and bounty of a Great Creator.

Festival in Bacolod City

The Maskara Festival

by: 3rd/c. Lagang, Joemar D.
SWU Maritime student


I never quite understood why my friend would move heaven and earth to leave Manila every 3rd weekend of October and be with his family in celebrating the Masskara festival in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental until I experienced myself what this festivity is about. After that, I realized that Bacolod City will never be called the City of Smiles without any reason at all.

When Bacolod City celebrates its Charter day, the event actually spans the whole month of October. Street dancing, unbelievably delicious food and a charged atmosphere of fun would greet you culminating with the MassKara Festival, a street dancing parade through the main thoroughfares of Bacolod by locals and tourists wearing colorful and elaborate masks and costumes.

MassKara, for those who wish to know a bit of its etymology, comes from two words: Kara which means face, and Mass which in English denotes "a lot"! It's a festival borne out of crisis and adversity, calling forth the resiliency and fun-loving nature of the Filipinos, proven especially true when times are difficult and not as you would rather wish them to be.

Bacolod Night life

by: 3rd/c. Lagang, Joemar D.
SWU Maritime student

I often visit Mu Shu Asian Restaurant and Lounge, usually to dine out with my family or to meet up and hang out with my friends.

I love their food, especially the Java Spareribs and Hainanese Chicken which goes perfect with their mixed fried rice. They also have Mu Shu pork dishes like Glazed Pork Spareribs, Crispy Garlic Spareribs, Pork Satay and more!

If we’re not dining at Mu Shu, we usually go there after dinner to chill out and enjoy the Bacolod night life. Since it opened, Mu Shu is the popular hang out and party place in Bacolod City, especially for the younger crowd.

Mu Shu serves a diverse choice of cocktails and drinks. I especially like their Strawberry Margarita which you can order by the glass or by the pitcher. For group or barkada gimmicks, their cocktails like the Mango Margarita, Purple Ninja and Kamikaze, which they serve in a pitcher, are perfect.

Drinks and cocktails would go well with pica pica. I would recommend their mozzarella cheese sticks served with a very delicious dip! They also have a dimsum platter which is very filling and appetizing. If you want to try something new and different, Mu Shu serves pizza with a twist! True to their Asian theme, they offer Hoisin Pork Pizza, Beef Teriyaki Pizza, Chicken Curry Pizza and more. It’s not your typical Italian Pizza but it tastes very good!

So the next time you’re in Bacolod and would like to eat Asian food or sample the Bacolod night life, go to Mu Shu for a total experience. It’s usually the first stop for a night out, with other Bacolod bars and clubs nearby. It’s located just off Lacson Street, Bacolod’s main road, where all the action is. Mu Shu is more like a lounge than a bar though. But during weekends and especially when there’s a party or a special event, it dims it lights and transforms into a club-like venue where a DJ spins the hottest dance tracks and people just dance and have fun.

The capital City of Negros Occidental

True About the City of Smile

by: 3rd/c. Lagang, Joemar D.
SWU Maritime student

Bacolod City is known as the City of Smile. Bacolod has become the favorite destination or choice as venue for conventions, meetings, seminars, workshops or even small gatherings whether national or regional. Bacolod can host a group of as big as 8,000 delegates to a small business meeting of 10 persons. Pre-convention and post convention activities are varied, while support facilities and services are handled by friendly, smiling, efficient and professional staff. Bacolod City, its sights and sounds, people and places. Now Famous for the Bacolod Chicken Inasal, the Masskara Festival during October and its Sugar Farms and Plantations. Learn more about Bacolod, fondly called the City of Smiles. Its hotel, restaurants, places of interests and more!

Hello!! Its about DOGS

The nature of DOGS

The dog (Canis lupus familiaris. pronounced /ˈkeɪ.nis ˈluːpəs fʌˈmɪliɛəris/) is a domesticated form of the Gray Wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The domestic dog has been one of the most widely kept working and companion animals in human history. Amongst canine enthusiasts, the word "dog" may also mean the male of a canine species, as opposed to the word "bitch" (the female of the species).

The dog quickly became ubiquitous across culture in all parts of the world, and was extremely valuable to early human settlements. For instance, it is believed that the successful emigration across the Bering Strait might not have been possible without sled dogs. Dogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, protection, companionship, and, more recently, assisting handicapped individuals. Currently, there are estimated to be 400 million dogs in the world.

Over the 15,000 year span that the dog had been domesticated, it diverged into only a handful of landraces, groups of similar animals whose morphology and behavior have been shaped by environmental factors and functional roles. As the modern understanding of genetics developed, humans began to intentionally breed dogs for a wide range of specific traits. Through this process, the dog has developed into hundreds of varied breeds, and shows more behavioral and morphological variation than any other land mammal. For example, height measured to the withers ranges from a few inches in the Chihuahua to a few feet in the Irish Wolfhound; color varies from white through grays (usually called "blue'") to black, and browns from light (tan) to dark ("red" or "chocolate") in a wide variation of patterns; coats can be short or long, coarse-haired to wool-like, straight, curly, or smooth. It is common for most breeds to shed this coat, but non-shedding breeds are also popular.

Dog is the common use term that refers to members of the subspecies Canis lupus familiaris. The term is sometimes used to refer to a wider range of species: it can be used to refer to any mammal belonging to the family Canidae, which includes wolves, foxes, jackals, and coyotes; it can be used to refer to the subfamily of Caninae, or the genus Canis, also often called the "true dogs". Some members of the family have "dog" in their common names, such as the Raccoon Dog and the African Wild Dog. A few animals have "dog" in their common names but are not canids, such as the prairie dog and the dog fish.

The English word dog comes from Middle English dogge, from Old English docga, a "powerful dog breed". The term may derive from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn, represented in Old English finger-docce ("finger-muscle"). The word also shows the familiar petname diminutive -ga also seen in frogga "frog", picga "pig", stagga "stag", wicga "beetle, worm", among others. Due to the archaic structure of the word, the term dog may ultimately derive from the earliest layer of Proto-Indo-European vocabulary, reflecting the role of the dog as the earliest domesticated animal.

Dog ousted traditional English hound by the 16th century, before which time it had the meaning of "dog" rather than modern "hunting dog", as in other Germanic languages – it is cognate to German Hund, Dutch hond, common Scandinavian hund, and Icelandic hundur. Hound itself is derived from the Proto-Indo-European *kwon- "dog", found in Welsh ci (plural cwn), Latin canis, Greek kýōn, Lithuanian šuõ, just to name a few.

In breeding circles, a male canine is referred to as a dog, while a female is called a bitch. A group of offspring is a litter. The father of a litter is called the sire, and the mother is called the dam. Offspring are generally called pups or puppies until they are about a year old. The process of birth is whelping.

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need comments!!!!!!! hehehehe "what is the use of brain if don't have skull!!!!"

The boy in the REGIMENT

This is ME!!!

I'm Joemar. Lagang is my surname and jojo is my nick name.
i play basketball but i prefer to play baseball because i am actualy a captain ball of the base ball team in my high school years. for you to know about me just look for me here in the MARITIME college of Southwestern University Cebu. Dont you worry if somebody laugh at you because you suddenly fall just look back cuz' i'll be there laughing also.