It’s official: Iglesia ni Cristo breaks 3 Guinness World Records

MANILA, Philippines — The charity walk held by the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) last Sunday where over 1.5 million members participated has officially set three new Guinness World Records.

Adam Brown, official adjudicator and representative of Guinness World Records, announced that the event dubbed “Worldwide walk to fight poverty” has broken the records for largest human sentence, largest charity walk at a single venue and largest human mosaic.

For the first record, a total of 23,235 participants lined up to form the sentence “Proud to be a member of Iglesia ni Cristo,” beating previous record-holder India, which had 16,550 participants that formed the sentence “You can you will” in 2016.

The event also beat the record for largest charity walk, set during a similar charity event by INC in 2014 and held in 129 sites across 16 countries in 24 hours with 519,221 participants.

Brown said the INC also set the world record for largest human mosaic formed by 9,000 members.

The image formed was the INC’s green, white and red flag with the biblical golden menorah in the middle.

The INC event beat the previous record held by Saudi Arabia in November 2017, which had 4,500 participants in observance of World Diabetes Day.

Apart from the three world records, Brown said they were still verifying two possible world records for the event – largest charity walk at multiple venues and the most nationalities in a charity walk.

He said the number of participants from over 300 other sites across 18 time zones would still be verified.

The Guinness representative added that the passports of those who participated in the event would be checked for the most nationalities in a charity record.

Edwil Zabala, INC spokesman, explained that although more members participated in the charity walk, only those whose wristbands have been deposited in the drop boxes at the end of the finish line were counted for the world record.

“Some might have not finished the walk or kept the wristband as a souvenir. So only those who surrendered their wristbands were counted,” he said.

Those who participated in the 1.6-kilometer charity walk assembled at around 6 a.m. at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Pasay City.

The 2014 charity walk was held to raise funds for the victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda. Last Sunday’s event was for the benefit of the poor in selected communities, especially in Africa where poverty is the principal cause of hunger.