NEW YORK – The Bacolod MassKara NY Edition, an expatriate group of Greater New York residents from the Southern Philippine province of Negros Occidental won the coveted Grand Prize in the recent Philippine Independence Day Parade on Madison Avenue.
The parade was one of multiple commemorative events staged over many months to mark the 114th anniversary of the declaration of Philippine Independence organized and presented annually by the Philippine Independence Day Council, Inc. (PIDCI).
The Independence Day Parade and two other major events presented on the first Sunday in June – the Street Fair and the Cultural Festival – have been staged every year for the past 20 years and is steadily growing into the largest outdoor gathering of Filipinos and their friends in the Diaspora. It has been proudly touted by Filipinos everywhere as the largest celebration of Philippine Independence outside of the Philippines.
The Grand Prize winner is a reproduction of the multi-award winning MassKara Festival of Bacolod, an annual street dancing parade and contest celebration which continues to draw huge crowds every October.
The Gawad Kalinga USA group was adjudged as the parade’s first runner-Up winner. The group recruited Filipinos and others in the area and provided them with yellow, blue, red and white tee-shirts to wear during the parade. As they marched during the parade, their formation resembled like a giant Philippine flag.
Clinching the second runner up spot was the indigenous-costumed group that had flown in from Smokey Mountain, in Tondo, Manila, Philippines – the Children of Mother Earth or Mga Inak ni Inang Daigdig (MAID) composed of young people and children born and raised in what is infamously known as the third largest untreated dump in the world.
MAID is an environmental performing arts group that was organized with a vision of a clean and green planet, with peace and justice for all.
The touring group is composed of 19 dancers, four musicians and five staff members headed by its Executive Director, Rev. Fr. Benigno Beltran, SVD, who is currently the parish priest of the Parish of the Risen Christ, in Smokey Mountain, Tondo.
Since its debut performance in 1994 at the Philippine International Convention Center in the Philippines, MAID has been designated as Ambassadors for Peace and Environment by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
Meanwhile, in the Floats Category, the big winner was the float of US Pinoys for Good Governance (USP4GG) depicting a large Chinese dragon with the sign of the International Tribunal of the Laws Of the Sea (ITLOS), in an apparent reference to the Scarborough Shoal controversy between the Philippines and China.
First Runner-Up in the Floats Category went to Our Lady of Manhattan and the Second Runner-up was that of the Filipino Social Club.
PHOTO CREDIT: Butch Gata
