Tired of all the karaoke deaths caused by the singing of "My Way"? At least this Holy Week, try "holy karaoke."

A new videoke microphone brings you all the verses of the Holy Bible and then with one push of a button, you get to sing from more than 1,000 gospel songs.

"This was developed particularly for the Philippine market," said Orville Roque, president of The Astra Group, Inc, one of the two distributors of the XTreme Magic Sing Videoke Microphone.

"Hopefully by next year, we could include the pasyon," Roque said.

Those who have no access of pasyon, the narrative of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ sung during the Holy Week, at least one website has it online.

The website of Hagonoy town in Bulacan (hagonoy.com) contains all 160 pages of the Kasaysayan ng Pasyong Mahal ni Hesukristong Panginoon Natin (History of the Holy Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ).

Roque also said that the "Gospel of Judas," a Gnostic text (one of Unorthodox Chrisitan documents written in the first and second centuries) which is very popular in the media right now, could also be included.

"The Bible Microphone can be customized as long as there are more than 500 orders for that specification," Roque said.

He said that the specification would be done in their main office of Enter Tech Inc. in South Korea.

Version 10.0, which is sold for P12,500, has the entire New International Version and the user can easily select the book, chapter and verse.

The problem, according to Roque, is that the background displays are the standard international and Filipino scenes found in their karaoke.

But Roque said users can install a picture background of their choice from an external video source like digital camera, camcorder, DVD or from the TV itself.

"We expect the microphone to become popular immediately among church groups to enhance their congregational prayers, reflections, discussions and worship with its highly-adaptable control features," he said.

Aside from Astra, the other distributor of Magic Sing Videoke Microphones in the Philippines is the In-a-Jiffy Enterprises.

Roque expects no resistance from conservative religious groups.

"We live in an electronic age where the electronic media is indispensable. Once the Bible Microphone is used by a group, the demonstration effect will come into play," he said.

When the user switches to the Videoke Mode, the Bible Microphone contains 1,050 Christian praise songs and hymns. The user can then select traditional church instruments like piano, organs and drums, as well as set various voice combinations.

Although karaoke is internationally known as a Japanese invention,
many Filipinos still believe Robert del Rosario's Sing-Along System
was the prototype. In 1994, Enter Tech reinvented the karaoke by coming up with a line of compact video karaoke system. The bulky karaoke's visual and audio qualities were built in a single microphone the ASIC or the Application Specific Integrated Circuit, the most popular product being the Magic Sing Along.
Roque said that when Magic was introduced by AGI four years ago, only a handful can afford the P10,000 price tag. But even then, Filipinos were already karaoke crazy.
According to the Department of Trade and Industry, Filipinos in 2001 bought 75,700 units of karaoke compared to 43,700 videocassette
recorders and 10,600 units of Video compact disc players, 302,100 radios or music centers and 883,100 new color TV.

To whet Pinoy's appetite for original Pilipino music, Magic Sing now has six Tagalog chips with each chip containing at least 500 songs, aside from thre built-in chip which has more than 2,000 songs. A praise chip has more than 500 songs.
Roque said a substantial number of their customers are balikbayans, who would either bring back the karaoke microphones when they come home or aks a relative to buy them. He said that they find it much cheaper to buy them here rather than order them abroad.
The balikbayans also like the Filipino backdrop, he said.