Bacolod
A Festival Of Smiling Masks Invented In A Year Of Grief, And Sugar Mansions Built On Labour Nobody Wants To Discuss · Bacolod, Negros Occidental
BACOLOD IS KNOWN FOR MASSKARA, THE FESTIVAL OF SMILING MASKS HELD IN THE THIRD WEEK OF OCTOBER, AND ALMOST NOBODY IS TOLD WHY IT EXISTS. IT WAS CREATED IN 1980, IN A YEAR WHEN THE SUGAR PRICE HAD COLLAPSED AND TAKEN THE PROVINCE'S ECONOMY WITH IT, AND WHEN THE MV DON JUAN SANK WITH HEAVY LOSS OF LIFE INCLUDING MANY NEGRENSES. The masks were a deliberate act - a city of smiles, chosen in the middle of grief. SUGAR BUILT EVERYTHING HERE: the mansions at SILAY, the wealth, the architecture, and a HACIENDA LABOUR HISTORY THAT THE HERITAGE TOURS DO NOT DWELL ON. THE RUINS AT TALISAY IS THE OTHER SET PIECE - an Italianate mansion BURNED BY FILIPINO GUERRILLAS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR to stop the Japanese using it, so the skeleton you photograph was destroyed by its own side. Silay, forty minutes north, is the real heritage town, with dozens of sugar-boom mansions and a fraction of Vigan's visitors - and chicken inasal here is the national benchmark.
Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Bacolod, Negros Occidental, Philippines
BACOLOD HAS AN AIRPORT AT SILAY with flights from Manila and Cebu, about forty minutes from the city, and FAST FERRIES CONNECT TO ILOILO in about an hour. THE RUINS AT TALISAY keeps daytime hours with an entry fee and is BEST AT SUNSET, when it is lit. SILAY'S HERITAGE HOUSES - Balay Negrense and others - keep daytime museum hours and SEVERAL CLOSE ON MONDAYS. MASSKARA RUNS IN THE THIRD WEEK OF OCTOBER and fills the city completely; accommodation books out months ahead and the streets close. THE PROVINCIAL CAPITOL AND LAGOON are open public space. CHICKEN INASAL IS THE LOCAL DISH and the Manokan Country strip is where to eat it. It is hot; the city is flat and walkable in the centre but sprawls beyond it.