Filipinos flock to online "Visita Iglesia"

The virtual version of the yearly "Visita Iglesia" continued to peak Thursday and Friday as a Church-run site logged nearly 90,000 visitors less than a month after it was launched – including the more than 30,000 on Maunday Thursday alone.

As of 5:10 a.m. Friday, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines' Visita Iglesia site recorded 88,431 visits.

Binondo Church in Manila's Chinatown district was one of the most visited churches this year, both virtually and in reality. On Maundy Thursday, several Catholic faithful visited it as part of their “Visita Iglesia" tradition. The church is also featured in the CBCP's Visita Iglesia online site, which had more than 80,000 visitors as of Thursday night.

It was an increase of more than 30,000 from the the 58,337 visits as of 7 a.m. Thursday.

As of 5 a.m. Friday, the site had shown no sign of slowing down or crashing due to "technical difficulties."

The peaking appeared to start Wednesday, from 40,187 as of 6:35 a.m. to more than 50,000 as of 10 p.m.

Last year, visits to the site had peaked on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Black Saturday. Last year's version attracted only 47,473 visitors.

The CBCP launched this year's Visita Iglesia site last April 1, for overseas Filipino workers who could not make it home and Catholics who cannot physically make the traditional church visit.

"Version 2" of the site features many improvements from the old site, including a YouTube introduction, and catecheses on Lent, the Holy Week an Easter.

It also had added features like the Pasyon and Seven Last Words, as well as homilies – but also links to its commercial sponsors as well.

— LBG