All about Masskara Festival

The famous MassKara Festival has long gone as evidenced by cleanliness of Lacson Street but the issues that revolve around it, both the recent and the past festivities continue to hog the headlines. The most recent was the near brawl that ensued between Councilors Kalaw Puentevella and Carl Lopez with both claiming they are victims of bullying by each other. Now as to whether who is telling the truth, I will leave that up to the public.

Bullying though is a serious issue that we should not take lightly since this has been found to be a common problem among kids, both in and out of schools. We, adults, should help address this issue instead of partaking in it. The council is supposed to be a place of honorable men, as you councilors are being formally addressed. Issues are not meant to be discussed and debated, not physically fought over. This is a simple gesture to impress upon our kids that there is no room for a bully in this world.

Now back to the MassKara Festival or festivals, since there are two organizers being questioned recently. The first is the resolution authored by Lopez requiring the Kasadya Bacolod Foundation Inc., the festival organizers in the last two years, to submit a liquidation report to the council.

Kasadya’s premise however was since they operated without a single assistance from the city government they should not be required to render a report to the council. If ever, the barangays and the schools that were provided assistance for their participation will be the one to submit their liquidation to the council.

Nevertheless, with all the talks going about, and in the spirit of transparency, I believe Kasadya will not lose anything if they report to the people, not to the council, the amount of sponsorship they gathered vis-à-vis the expenses that they incurred. The fact that there are clamors from winners who have not yet received their prizes due to failure of some sponsors to fully pay their pledges may help Kasadya as well if this information is put out in public.

The other issue was the COA findings provided to the media which Bacolod Mayor Monico Puentevella wants investigated and involves the Silver MassKara Festival Organization Inc., the group that used to operate the MassKara event under the previous administration of now Rep. Bing Leonardia.

In its findings COA made mention that the city government in 2007 provided a P4-million financial assistance to the Silver MassKara group which was taken from the Personnel Benefit Fund which was a violation of government procedures on use of appropriated funds for a specified purpose.

In effect, the local government can provide assistance for whatever purpose from its savings, which is actually the basis of how DAP was used by the national government. In this particular case however, the P4 million was not part of savings but was borrowed from a specified budget and will be replenished as soon as savings from other sources have been gathered.

The point of COA here is that the act itself is without legal basis. Furthermore, what if there are no savings at all from other appropriated budgets? That could have resulted to a P4-million deficiency intended for Personnel Benefits. It also implies, and this is what the cry against DAP was, instead of clearly using the appropriated funds for what it was intended, there is now a need to look for possible ways to come up with the P4 million savings to pay what was taken out of the Personnel Benefit Fund.

Former Masskara festival director Eli Tajanlangit who headed the Silver Masskara group also said they have submitted all required financial reports post the events they have managed and these are part of public records.

Well as far as the COA is concerned and based on the Mayor’s pronouncements, it is not the Silver Masskara group that needs to be investigated but how money was procured to allow the group to stage the festivities.

As mentioned in the COA report, they are requiring the City Treasurer and the City Budget Officer to provide justification as to why they certified the allocation of P4-million for the use of the Silver MassKara contrary to legal government procedures and for the SP to take caution in approving such an act that is clearly in violation of our government code.

With regards to the issue of cash prizes that remain unpaid, festival director Rhoderick Samonte should exert all efforts to ensure these are paid soon lest this become a big issue again. If, as he claims, it’s due to Manila sponsors’ non-payment yet, these can easily be remedied if he puts it out in public. After all, I don’t think there’s one corporate sponsor there who would not remit their payment if it gets published, thus giving the winners their due and putting the public’s mind at rest.*

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