Philippines, religion, television

Sunday Mass on Philippine Television

Sundays are family days, and one obligation of a family every Sunday is to attend weekly Mass. During early Sunday mornings, a majority of television stations air a live Sunday Mass for families who have no time going to church. However, there were some exceptions.

GMA, for some reason, does not broadcast a weekly Sunday Catholic mass. Instead, they air programs that preach the word of God in a different way. Bro. Eddie Villanueva‘s Jesus is Lord Church has been loyal to the GMA Network for over three decades, airing the flagship program ‘Jesus the Healer’ every Sunday morning. In addition, the said program also airs on sister station GMA News TV on Saturday mornings. After ‘Jesus the Healer’, Dr. Charles Stanley‘s In Touch Ministries air their flagship program on the said network. Like JIL, In Touch and GMA have a loyal relationship that has stretched over two decades.

Even though network affiliate GMA Pinoy TV has committed to air a live Sunday Mass for OFWs every week, the fact that GMA does not commit to air a live Sunday Mass on a weekly basis still baffles me. Although they have aired a Mass on occasion, such events are only aired every Christmas and Holy Week, and is aired via satellite from the Vatican. GMA needs to air a weekly Sunday Mass like its competitors ABS-CBN and TV5, unless they prove that their braintrust are not practicing Catholics.

Net 25, for obvious reasons, is owned by the Iglesia ni Cristo, whose flagship programs likewise air every weekend morning on the said network. Although the INC has its own television network, unfortunately they still air their programs on Net 25, despite the fact that both were UHF television networks. Still, its loyalty to the INC is immeasurable.

Exceptions aside, Sunday Mass on television has been a tradition since the 1960s. Sunday Mass always kicks off the Sunday schedule for most television networks, whose programming that day is normally dedicated to families everywhere. For those who have no time going to church, tuning in to Sunday Mass on television is a need to rediscover both Jesus Christ and salvation.

Standard

4 thoughts on “Sunday Mass on Philippine Television

  1. Some correction, GMA was once aired Sunday Mass by Msgr. Sabino Vengco under the program: “Ecclesia in Asia: Ang Misa.”

    The reason behind GMA’s removal is their internal policy and the demographics of Filipinos. Remember, 90+% of Filipinos are Christians (80% Roman Catholic, 10% Protestants and Born Again).

    GMA does this to have a competition and a proportionate viewership of the broadcast industry.

    However, GMA News does not hate or disregard the points of the Catholic Church for that matter unless it’s Net 25.

    • So GMA wanted to focus their religious programs to all Christian beliefs. And Jesus the Healer once aired on ABS-CBN; no wonder why Eddie Villanueva switched from Kapamilya to Kapuso in the late 1980s because the Kapamilya network wanted to focus on Catholic-based programs, such as ‘Family Rosary Crusade’.

  2. Last July 2013 nagstart ang Sunday Mass ng GMA Regional TV entitled VISITA IGLESIA until now. Eto ang Sunday Mass na ang pagmimisahan nila ay ung mga Historical Churches sa iba’t-ibang lugar sa Pilipinas. Magandang idea nila iyan kasi part ng ating kasaysayan ang mga Historical Church.

    kaya dapat ibalik din ang Sunday Mass nila sa Mega Manila. Tutal nawala na ung kay Dr. Charles Stanley at ipinalit sa anime o cartoons

    • Pero pinalitan nila kaagad yung mga anime with a movie block to compete against ABS and TV5’s Sunday Mass.

      As long as yung GMA ay pagaari ng mga owners na Protestantismo, walang ni isang pang-Catholic na programa ang maipapalabas rito.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s