The school category of the MassKara arena and streetdance competition came back after five years, after having been put on indefinite pause during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was nice to see festival organizers make the effort to bring it back, as it was a part of the original festival.
Aside from that, having school-aged children participate in a city’s signature festival is also one way to encourage its continuity, as those who get involved at a young age are likely to carry the torch when they become older, as long as they don’t get traumatized too much by potentially overcompetitive, overeager, and overzealous elders during their time spent preparing and practicing for their respective presentations.
Congratulations to the Estefania Elementary School performers, who retained the title during the comeback of the school category to the MassKara festival this year, having been the champions the last time the category was still part of the festival in 2019, or the pre-COVID era.
One thing that was quite noticeable during the school category performance on Saturday was that the kids performed despite the terrible weather, where there were heavy rains throughout that day. That was no mean feat, to perform under such challenging conditions, especially if you consider the intricacy and weight of their costumes and masks. Aside from the dangers of getting sick from being so wet from the rain, they surely had to deal with slipping and sliding costumes and accessories, which must’ve increased the chances of chafing or minor injuries, before, during, and after their ‘world class’ performances.
That level of dedication to the craft and the performance, especially for school-aged kids, seems to be quite surprising to find these days, especially during this current era when even just the slightest forecast of heavier-than-usual rain automatically results in classes being suspended by local government units.
Last Saturday, during the school category performances, there was a red rainfall warning for the area, but as the saying goes, “the show must go on.”
Of course, we simply cannot equate a MassKara festival performance to a regular school day, so we all know that cancelling, suspending, or postponing the event on account of poor weather was never an option. However, if you come to think of it, the difference in the commitment to fulfilling an obligation to the public, as far as the organizers and the local government officials are concerned, when it comes to school-aged kids and foul weather, are truly worlds apart if you compare the festival to the average school day.
Apparently, for the MassKara festival, it is ok for school-aged kids to don heavy and intricate costumes and perform in weather that could make Noah get his biblical ark ready for action. However, on regular days, just a hint of a rain warning and oftentimes school days are very quickly suspended. While it is easy to understand the concept that the show must go on, it is also quite disturbing to see how vulnerable our cities and communities are to the whims of the weather and how not much has been done about it, despite all the warning signs and everything we’ve been through.
In an ideal world, the venue for the MassKara arena competition would be weatherproof. In a first world city, or whatever it is politicians would like to call it, there would be a stadium with a retractable roof. That would mean school kids, and even fully grown adults, won’t have to perform in the rain or scorching heat. As the ‘solution’ of moving the festival back a few days has not improved the chances of more favorable weather, it might be time for an infrastructure-based solution to a well-known problem.
Whether it’s the MassKara festival or regular everyday living, our cities need to be weatherproofed with better infrastructure. Forcing young students to dance in the rain, or suspending classes and government work every time the weather seems bad is not a sustainable solution by any means. An all-weather stadium that doesn’t get daily use might seem like a luxury for a city, but if you come to think of it, we most definitely need schools, offices, sidewalks, public transport, waiting sheds, and pedestrian crossings that are more or less weatherproofed so we don’t have to put our lives on hold just because rain is in the forecast.
What makes all this hurt so much more for Filipinos is that our government has apparently been spending billions of pesos on ‘flood control’ and other infrastructure or projects that are supposed to weather proof our cities, but it seems that all those funds and effort has been eaten away by massive corruption. If all these government funds hadn’t been stolen by the same people who were supposed to be its stewards, we could actually be living in communities that can handle different kinds of weather much better.
If we didn’t learn anything from seeing little kids in full MassKara regalia being drenched in the rain while performing for our pleasure, and for the sake of putting out a good show, then maybe we do deserve to live in towns and cities that provide the bare minimum because anything more than that is lost to corruption.*
