Masskara festival director Eli Tajanlangit said that for the first time in 26 years, they will present the Masskara Queen bets in a pageant to be held at the Bacolod Plaza, the heart of the city. Rene Hinojales will direct the pageant. Six Southeast Asian diplomats will also arrive in the city during the festival.
One feature of the Masskara Festival is the participation of the National Commission on Culture and Arts (NCCA), which will continue to re-engineer the festival.
The NCCA, according to Tajanlangit, will provide six judges for the different categories. These "unknown judges" will be along the parade route. The theme of the Masskara festival this year is "Sigue lang. Sigue na, Bacolod babo kita."
The festival also serves as a dry run for the festivities that will be held here during the Southeast Asian Games in November.
Last Wednesday, Sugarlandia throbbed with expectation over the issue of the alternative fuel ethanol, which is mostly derived from sugarcane. That’s what Negros Occidental is known for. It supplies 57 percent of the country’s sugar produce.
What fired expectations among Negrense sugar producers was the symposia on ethanol, which was sponsored by the University of the Philippines Los Baños College Alumni Association.
The symposia was one of the best attended gatherings in Negros in recent years. Almost every big name in Negros society was around. Each one wanted to listen to everything they could hear about ethanol and its future prospects.
The confusion about ethanol was principally due to rumors about the alternative fuel. Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations (Confed) trustee Joe Marie Montinola said that sugar producers keep talking about sugar while discussing an energy issue.
Luis Tongoy, chairman of the Confed Negros-Panay chapter, also pointed out that most sugarmen are focused on the price of the 50-kilogram bag, forgetting that ethanol is a liquid alcohol product. So they were all talking in different dimensions as they debated the prospects of ethanol.
In short, he said there is no sense debating something that could not be considered feasible under the present situation.
The arrival of Bukidnon Rep. Juan Miguel Zubiri, chairman of the House energy committee, altered the drift of the discussion as he immediately reported that the House had unanimously approved the National Ethanol Bill on second reading. He expects the Senate, through the stewardship of the Senate energy committee, chaired by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, to act on the counterpart bill in the Upper House before December.
But the reason why there is a heated debate on the ethanol bill among local sugar producers was the information offered by Zubiri that Marubeni Philippines is bidding to build 10 ethanol plants in the Philippines, which means about P15.5 billion in new investments. Each plant reportedly costs about P1.5 billion and construction will start in 2006, Zubiri said.
The ethanol alliance is very excited about this, Zubiri stressed, as this is a pioneering industry which is expected to open many doors for employment and investment.
Zubiri, himself a sugarman, could not bail himself out of the sugar mindset and it was obvious when he said, "I see this sunrise once again for the sugar industry."
Rep. Ignacio Arroyo added fuel to the fire when he announced that studies are now being conducted on where to build the proposed P1.5-billion bioethanol plants and three places in his district – Hinamaylan City, Binalbagan and Hinigaran — were the choices.
"That means we will have another one in the south. The north already has one," Arroyo told local mediamen.
The San Carlos bioethanol plant is a venture that has the backing of Bronzeoak, the national government and local producers and investors.
In the case of the fifth district, Arroyo said Japanese and Chinese businessmen are planning to invest there.
Actually, there has been a lot of rumors about investors scouting for possible areas for joint ventures for an ethanol plant. In Negros Occidental alone, there have been reports of investors looking at the possibility of converting the Dacongcong area in upper Kabankalan City into an ethanol production center. There was also talk of investors (as many as six organizations) reportedly combing the Maao area of Bago City as a potential ethanol area. This is a logical choice as the Maao sugar central is no longer operating and there is so much excess sugarcane available.
But there was also talk in Manila last week that Petron and Shell were eyeing several areas in Luzon for possible expansion of sugarcane plantations just for ethanol. These reportedly include eastern Batangas, Cagayan Valley, Bataan and Zambales.
Zubiri, however, said it is almost all systems go for the construction of an ethanol plant in Bukidnon. Actually, both Busco and Cyrstall have their hands full with sugarcane oversupply.
The outlook for ethanol is bullish and it’s on everyone’s lips. We are now entering the ethanol era.