Masskara serves as dry run for SEAG

The ongoing Masskara Festival and the 67th charter anniversary celebration of Bacolod City serve as a dry run for the forthcoming Southeast Asian Games. So far, that seems to be also the focus of city officials as they craft programs and activities that serve to test-run SEAG plans and programs.

For example, the participation of the Thai foreign minister as a guest judge in the Miss Masskara pageant and the announced participation of an Indonesian group in the forthcoming activities also highlight the fact that foreigners this year will start arriving in Bacolod earlier than the SEAG.

The series of organized activities by various groups — whether civic, non-government or cultural organizations, or whatsoever — has also demonstrated communal gatherings.

One of the biggest gatherings, for example, is the ongoing mandatory Continuing Legal Education seminar at the L’Fisher Hotel in Bacolod.

This is under the auspices of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines’ Negros Occidental chapter. Some 400 members of the local bar are attending the seminar.

Local lawyers took the seminar seriously. Lawyer Alfonso Manayon arrived late at the meeting of the Bacolod City Capitol Lions Club on Tuesday night, but stressed that "this is a seminar that none of us local lawyers wish to miss."

Actually, it was IBP local president William Nicolas Mirano who opened the four-day seminar, with lawyer Emmanuel Vinco, IBP auditor, delivering the invocation.

But that was not all. The Miss Gay Masskara affair was also attended by a crowd of some 4,000 at the BAY Center in Bacolod City.

Masskara Dancers Lead Japan Fest Entries

The sweetener was the report of Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia last Tuesday that the Masskara Festival dancers had topped the foreign entries in the Midosuji Festival Parade in Osaka, Japan last Sunday.

They bested the participating groups from Peru, Ecuador, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Brazil, China, Hawaii, Germany and the United States as well as the University of Washington.

Philippine tourism attaché to Japan Valentino Cabansag said this is the first time in the Midosuji Festival that a Philippine group topped other foreign entries. The festival was opened to foreign participants in 1997 only.

The Villamonte Masskara dancers were the entry of the Department of Tourism. This was the same group which participated in the Shanghai, China festival last year.

City councilor Homer Bais also reported that the same Masskara dancers captured second place in the overall contest in Osaka, then dominated by Japanese entries.

The Bacolod delegation included councilor Judge Thadeus Sayson, Alijis barangay captain Pepito Malapitan, tourism senior operations officer Butch Erasmo and choreographer Segundo Jesus Cabalcar Jr.

Leonardia met the Masskara dancers upon their return from Japan last Tuesday in Manila.

Masskara Open Darts

Hundreds of darters from all over the country will see action in the Masskara Darts Invitational on Saturday and Sunday at the Top’s Millennium Plaza here.

Rommel Bagotayao of the Talisay City Association of Negros Darters and Darts Clubs has completed preparations for the hostilities.

Darters’ groups attending the meet are those from Iloilo, Kalibo, Cebu and San Carlos City. The other participants are coming from the cities of Dipolog, Dapitan, Bais and Dumaguete and Cagayan de Oro.

Actually, since the start of the week, most local hotels and pension houses have been filled up with guests. And one major development was the announcement by the National Census and Statistics Office that it will start monitoring domestic and foreign visitors to Bacolod. Not that it has not done so earlier, but the city government has just informed hotels, etc. to ask for their guests’ passports and other documents to also eliminate the possibility of terrorists coming in under the guise of guests of the Masskara Festival.

National U Games

Bacolod will also bulge with visitors post the Masskara Festival. This will be during the Oct. 27-29 National University Games at the University of St. La Salle.

The competition will include men and women’s basketball, chess, football, taekwondo, and volleyball.

The basketball games will be played at the USLS Coliseum, Bago City Coliseum and Silay City gymnasium. Chess hostilities will be at the USLS library.

Football games will be played at the University of Negros Occidental Recoletos and Talisay City football fields. Taekwondo will be at the USLS grounds.

Emilio Aguinaldo College hopes to retain its men’s basketball crown, while the University of the East is eyeing back-to-back titles in men’s taekwondo.

The Holy Cross College of Davao will try to defend the men chess championship. The University of the Philippines’ woodpushers hope to bring home another title in the women’s division.

So far, according to Roger Banzuela, 32 schools have confirmed their entry in the UNI Games.

Another dry run for the SEAG, actually.

Untangling Sugar And Ethanol Questions

Agriculture Secretary Ding Panganiban yesterday went into an early morning discussion with officials of the Confederation of Sugarcane Producers (Confed) on various issues that involve the sugar industry, especially in the face of the new development — the production of bioethanol from sugarcane.

The first issue, of course, was the need to accelerate the shipment to the United States of the hiked Philippine share of the US sugar quota to show the Americans our capability, pointed out Reynaldo Bantug, Confed national president.

Second was the suggestion of Confed trustees to allocate 10 percent of this crop year’s sugar production as "A" (US quota) sugar in the face of a strong possibility that the US may hike again its quota because of the extensive damage wreaked by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the Louisiana sugarcane crops.

Rita, it turned out, virtually wiped out the bulk of the crop which was due for harvest last September when Rita’s sea surge drove saltwater as far as nine miles inland, covering harvestable crops.

Even now, it is evident that the situation has overturned some of the traditional situation in sugar-buying in the domestic sugar trade. For example, "A" (US quota) sugar is sold only at P970 per Lkg, while the domestic raw sugar is sold at P1,010 at the Hawaiian Sugar Philippines Co. Although it is early in the milling season, there are indications that there may soon develop a scramble for "A" sugar, especially in the face of an impending increase in the Philippine share of the US sugar quota.

But the more important issue raised was the need to address problems involving the bioethanol program of the government.

Panganiban agreed with the observation of Luis Tongoy, Panay-Negros Confed chapter chairman, and Philsurin chairman Nene Trebol that it is imperative to clarify in the bioethanol law that the stockholders, primarily the sugar producers, are given a bigger role in decision and policy-making in the National Ethanol Board.

While it is true that ethanol is an energy program, it must not be overlooked that ethanol is agriculture-based and the problems of the producers must be attended to, the Confed officials stressed.

Panganiban himself admitted that he has noted that many of the energy undersecretaries and assistant secretaries seem oblivious to the problems of the farmers. They seem to be more focused only on the energy side of ethanol production.

Philsurin director general Leon Arceo told the conferees that the San Carlos Bioethanol Corp. has signed an MOA with the Philsurin giving P4 per ton for research. Arceo also said Philsurin has received 42 clones of sweet sorghum from India. Sorghum is also considered as a possible stop-gap ethanol source during the interim period between harvests of sugarcane, a one-year crop.

There was also a discussion that Philsurin, which operates the GSP, has already mapped out possible sugar expansion areas in the country.

"So there is a need for the government to be able to clearly define the areas where sugarcane may be planted, delineate them, and ban further areas which could also affect the prospective ethanol distilleries," Trebol said.

Sugar Administrator James Ledesma pointed out that lately, while discussing with other crop operators about their joining the ethanol program, the sugar industry is "already 390,000 hectares ahead."

Panganiban emphasized that the sugar industry is the model of an organized agricultural industry. It is not just enough to discuss capability, it is equally important that sustainability must also be considered, he said.

In short, it is fortunate that the sugar industry has enough lead time to be able to anticipate and discuss how best to realign some of its institutional structures to cope with the complexities of the problems of going into ethanol production.