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By Jeffrey Lee
GIVE it to Bacolod City, the City of Smiles,
which has created that splendid and imaginative festival Masskara,
to come up with yet another unique and colorful street pageantry to
celebrate the Chinese New Year—the BacoLaodiat.
Now on its third year, BacoLaodiat will erupt
with fireworks, dragon dances and lantern parades, while adhering to
religious rituals and traditional practices like gift-giving and
family feasts. The name is derived from “Bacolod” and “laodiat,”
a Fookien term meaning celebration.
The BacoLaodiat festivities, to happen on
February 7 to 10, will usher in the Year of the Rat and will stream
through the city plaza and the city streets, climaxing at the
Capitol Shopping Center (or just “Shopping” as it is known by
locals) north of the city. BacoLaodiat intends to revive Shopping as
Bacolod’s Chinatown and an investment and tourism destination.
Businessman William Ong, calling the shots for
the BacoLaodiat festivities this year, is positive that the
celebration will benefit the city in the medium and long-term, and
will even contribute to the tourism development of the Negros
province. “BacoLaodiat has the potential to become an annual event
like the Masskara festival—that is our aspiration. Initially, we
hope ‘Shopping’ will come back to life and transform itself to a
key economic center of the city.”
BacoLaodiat started as the concerted effort of
34 business, civic, religious, educational and family organizations,
under the banner of the Negros Tsinoy organization. These include
the three Filipino-Chinese chambers of commerce in Bacolod and
Negros, the two fire-fighting brigades, the Chinese schools St.
John’s Institute, Tay Tung and Trinity Christian School, and
temples Fa Tzang, Yung Tho, Foguangshan Yuan Thong and Bun Soo Chosi.
During the February 7 opening day, a spectacular
evening parade of lanterns, illuminated floats, dragons and lions,
will start from SM, pass by the City Hall and public plaza, move
towards the Capitol Lagoon which will be ablaze with lanterns on the
water and on the grounds. Lighted markers depicting the 12 animals
of Chinese astrology will be set up along the festival circuit. A
synchronized fireworks show, billed as the “Symphony of Sparks and
Lights,” will immediately come to life following the declaration
by the City Mayor of the start of the BacoLaodiat. The opening-day
revelry will climax with a two-hour cultural show of dances and
songs.
For tourists, locals and guests, the Tsinoy
community will proudly present Chinese arts and culture all
throughout the four-day celebration. The Chinese temples will be
decorated and spectacularly lighted up at night and each will have
special activities, like cooking demos, displays of Chinese
paintings and calligraphy, exhibits of Chinese arts and crafts and
herbal and traditional medicines, and Chinese cultural games
(participated in by members of the Chinese family associations).
For Wilbert Uy, a young Filipino-Chinese
businessman, the festival is an affirmation that the Chinese
presence continues to be strong in Bacolod. “It’s like recalling
our roots and coming together as one for the next few important days
in the Chinese Lunar calendar. It’s no longer Chinese kami,
Ilonggo kayo, because pare-pareho tayong lahat—Pilipino [It’s no
longer ‘we’re Chinese, you’re Ilonggo,’ because we’re
Filipinos all the same]. Everyone is looking forward to the events
this coming week,” he enthuses.
In the spirit of the prosperity, hotels,
restaurants and shopping establishments will be offering special
Chinese menus and shopping deals and discounts. Bacolod has four
major shopping centers—Lopue’s, Gaisano, Robinsons and SM—as
well as excellent hotels and restaurants, nightspots and fun places
comparable to the ones in Manila.
Shopping is a four-block district, once a
sugarcane plantation owned by the late Alfredo Montelibano Sr.,
which he opened up to lure the businessmen and storeowners, mostly
Chinese, after the big fire in 1955 that razed the central
commercial district in Bacolod. In recent years, the urban thrust
away from the congestion and traffic of downtown saw the rise of
young and expanding businesses in Shopping, among them, the
restaurants Mei Wei, Apollo, Great Wok, City Lunch, and the moderne
Kuppa Cafe.
Initial additions will be a tiangge called
Chopsticks Alley, which will rise along 6th Street between Lacson
and Hilado Streets, a-bustle with kiosks and rolling carts, colorful
lanterns and an open-air dining tent serving everyone’s favorite
Chinese food. Invited to join the trade activities are merchants of
Chinese delicacies and other products from Manila, Cebu and Iloilo.
Also in Shopping are spectacular Chinese
temples, a Chinese drugstore with a bounty of exotic goods, the
school and church established by Chinese missionaries, and other
surprising discoveries in this old district.
This Chinese New Year, the friendly people of
Bacolod will continue to flash their most celebrated smiles.
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