BACOLOD City – MassKara Festival director and Bacolod Yuhum Foundation Inc. (BYFI) president Pinky Ocampo condemned the “malicious act” done by a group of spectators on one of the participants of the 1st Balik Yuhom XC Race held on Oct. 2.
Ocampo was referring to a social media post that went viral; the culprits were seen fetching water from a stream by the race path and handing it to race participants, one of whom they filmed and made fun of.
She appealed to Bacolodnons to “put our best foot forward as we want to make our participants and visitors feel welcomed and get the best experience out of this festival.”
Ocampo said we “ought to feel pride that bikers from other parts of the country came to participate in this race” and “it is unfortunate for them to be victimized by pranksters.”
Meanwhile, Roseller “Jojo” Ramos, a member of the organizing group – Team Armands – also shared the same sentiments.
He said they immediately acted on the incident and got in touch with one of the three culprits, as the two other suspects seemed to have deactivated their social media accounts. However, they got no response.
“We would like to put it on record that the culprits were not race participants but spectators who should have been more circumspect in their actions considering that we want everybody, especially those who traveled here for the race, to enjoy our MassKara Festival,” Ramos clarified.
He said they were hoping to deal with it privately “because we believe the culprits are minors,” but received no responses from any of the identified suspects, “and we don’t want that prank to mar the success of the bike run.”
Nevertheless, Ramos said they apologized to the victim who actually won the race in the LGBTQ category.
“It was supposed to be a big thing for the LGBTQ community because races don’t normally have that kind of category, and we are sorry that this thing has to happen,” said Ramos,
Ramos further said the culprits were not members of the biking community in Bacolod.
“They are what we call the pandemic bikers. Meaning they took up biking as a hobby during the pandemic. Members of the biking community here and elsewhere always respect their fellow bikers and this would not have happened if they were real biking enthusiasts,” said Ramos.
The race brought in bikers from as far as Cebu, Iloilo, Guimaras, Antique and Negros Oriental./PN
