Filipino comic book heroes come alive in Baguio

FANTASY STREETGhouls and other characters take over Session Road during a parade hosted by the University of Baguio. —EV ESPIRITU

BAGUIO CITY — Homegrown superhero Darna, Ang Panday (the blacksmith) and every imaginable Filipino fantasy and comic book characters of everyone’s childhood, took over downtown Baguio on Friday (Oct. 26) disrupting city traffic but bringing residents out to the streets for the annual Halloween parade staged by a local university.

Session Road was closed for the University of Baguio’s (UB) “Karkarna,” a costume pageant that UB students started in 2016.

Karkarna is Ilocano for “unusual.” The parade is held every last Friday of October.

Pintados

Some of the cosplayers dressed up as the Pintados, characters from an old television show who have powers supposedly generated by their ancient Filipino tattoos.

Cosplayers also turned up dressed as homegrown hero Darna and Panday, a fantasy character created and popularized by the late actor Fernando Poe Jr.

A student playing Darna entertained the crowd by showing off her “fighting skills,” while a superhero called Volta hurled herself into the air with the help of a bamboo pole that was weighed down by three burly men.

Filipino superheroes

Multiple versions of comic book and movie mermaid Dyesebel beguiled people with a dance, while Dumangan, the Tagalog god of good harvest, and his wife, Idianale, marched during the parade.

“It is high time that we also educate the community about Filipino culture and arts” even in the world of fantasy, said UB Dean Jennelyn Magpatoc, of the School of International Hospitality and Tourism Management.

The school was this year’s parade organizer.

“With the emergence of international superheroes like Batman and Superman, we have forgotten our superheroes,” Magpatoc said.

“So we also would like to remind the young and our community that we have our own local heroes,” she said. —Valerie Damian