MANILA, Philippines - The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has scored ABS-CBN after the network’s weekly entertainment variety show, "ASAP XV," aired a summer special episode that showed its performers wearing bikinis and skimpy wardrobes.
CBCP wondered why the Boracay episode was aired at a time when Catholics were observing Palm Sunday, which signals the start of the Holy Week.
Monsignor Gaspar Balerite of the Diocese of Catarman, Northern Samar said the summer-themed episode was “an inappropriate way to usher in the Holy Week.”
Balerite added that media-- whether used in entertainment or public service—should be sensitive to the Catholic Church’s Holy Week observance.
“They (media) should be sensitive to the Holy Week, they should respect this Catholic observance. Just this noon, Channel 2 showed a beach scene with girls on skimpy bikinis and it is Passion Sunday,” Balerite said in his text message to CBCP media director Monsignor Pedro Quitorio III on Sunday.
Balerite noted that by advertising beach resorts as destination for the Holy Week, ABS-CBN "has portrayed the week of repentance, abstinence and fasting as a time for merrymaking and leisure."
“I hope beach resorts should not be advertised [in the way they did] because [this] vacation [is meant] for the Holy Week observance,” Balerite added.
Quitorio said Balerite’s grievances should also remind other television stations and other media outfits to be sensitive on the contents and messages that they air or publish during Holy Week and other Catholic and non-Catholic observances.
“Since most of this media networks are Catholic, I think this is also a barometer of how Catholics regard their very own Catholic observances and traditions—which pose a bigger challenge to church leaders by the way they educate their own constituents. But Catholic or not, media should be very particular with religious sensitivities,” Quitorio said.
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