World Youth Day portal to give updates

MANILA, Philippines - Filipino youth who would not be able to attend the the six-day 25th World Youth Day (WYD) in Spain would still be able to witness the unfolding of events and get real-time updates by being virtually present in the international event, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) reported yesterday.

CBCP-Episcopal Commission on Youth (ECY) executive secretary Fr. Conegundo Garganta said that young Filipino Catholics could have updated information on the developments of WYD by visiting the online portal www.wydpinoy.com.

The WYD, to be held in Madrid, Spain, runs from Aug. 16 to 21.

April Frances Ortigas, web administrator of YouthPinoy!, said that coming up with a website dedicated to the upcoming WYD was their way of “answering the call of Pope Benedict XVI who said that we should be present in the digital media…This is to proclaim that God is here and God is present in the cyberspace.”

They are also planning to send a team to Spain to document WYD activities, specifically on the Filipino delegation.

Aside from the website, Ortigas said the people could also visit their accounts in social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. This would also allow families of the delegates to check on them.

Fr. Garganta said that there would be about 2,000 Filipino delegates attending the WYD, of whom 427 would come from the CBCP-ECY Philippines.

He recalled that at the last WYD held in Sydney, Australia there were 800 delegates from the Philippines.