Eddie Villanueva

Bro. Eduardo "Eddie" Villanueva
Bangon Pilipinas Party candidate for President of the Philippines
Election date May 10, 2010
Running mate	Perfecto Yasay Jr
Personal details
Born	(1946-10-06) October 6, 1946 Bocaue, Bulacan, Philippines
Political party	Bangon Pilipinas Party
Spouse(s)	Sis. Adoracion "Dory" Villanueva
Children	Eduardo "Jon-Jon" Villanueva, Jr. Emmanuel Joel Villanueva Joni Villanueva-Tugna
Occupation	Televangelist Owner of ZOE Broadcasting Network Author Speaker
Religion	Evangelical Christianity
Website	broeddie.ph

Eduardo "Eddie" C. Villanueva (born October 6, 1946), most commonly referred to as Bro. Eddie Villanueva, is a religious/spiritual and political leader in the Philippines, a presidential candidate in the 2004 and 2010 Philippine election,^[1][2] and a senatorial candidate in the 2013 midterm Philippine election,^[3][4] all as the standard bearer of the Bangon Pilipinas Party. Prior to joining the politics, he is best known as the founder and leader of the Jesus Is Lord Church, yet he officially declared his leave of absence as its Spiritual Director during the launching of Bagong Pilipinas Movement on March 28, 2009 “so that [he] may concentrate on the transformation of our beloved nation.”^[5][6][7]

In 2004, he was a presidential candidate in the Philippine election but lost to incumbent Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and placed last in a field of five candidates, with 6.2% of the vote - although many Filipinos believed^[8] that the 2004 election in general was an alleged large-scale election fraud, particularly due to the Aragoncillo Project.

On August 21, 2009, he announced that he will be running in the 2010 election and on November 30, 2009, filed his Certificate of Candidacy with the Commission on Elections "accompanied by his running mate, former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chief Perfecto Yasay, and five senatorial bets".^[9][10]

He is the owner and chairman of ZOE Broadcasting Network, a commercial TV station currently operated by GMA Network through Quality TeleVision (QTV) now GMA News TV. He is also the owner and president of Jesus Is Lord Colleges Foundation Inc. (JILCF), a Christian school in Bocaue, Bulacan.^[11][6]

Biography

Bro. Eddie was born on October 6, 1946 in Bocaue, Bulacan to parents Joaquin T. Villanueva and Maria Cruz Villanueva, both now deceased. (The elder Villanueva was a former Olympic sprinter who represented the Philippines in the Far Eastern Games for four consecutive years in 1920s).^[11]

He is married to Sis. Adoracion "Dory" Villanueva and they have four children. His eldest son, Mayor Eduardo "Jon-Jon" Villanueva, Jr., incumbent mayor of Bocaue, Bulacan lost his campaign in 2004 but won in the May 2007 elections. Jonjon was charged with murder for allegedly ordering the shooting of a soldier of the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the May 2007 elections.^{[12][13][14][15]} His daughter, Joni Villanueva-Tugna, is a Christian singer and TV host. His other son, Cong. Emmanuel Joel Villanueva, representing the CIBAC party list, became the youngest member of the House of Representatives (HOR) when he took his oath of office on February 6, 2002. According to the Philippine Star, Joel Villanueva is the fifth richest party-list congressman with a net worth of P18.4 million.^[16][11]

Education and early life

In 1969, Villanueva graduated with a degree in commerce, majoring in economics, from the Philippine College of Commerce (PCC), since renamed the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. He was immersed in both student and labor movements in the 1970s, joining the progressive segments of society which opposed the Marcos dictatorship. Villanueva also took up law at the University of the Philippines but was already into so much activism that he never had time to take the bar [examination]. During Martial law, he fought local landgrabbers in Bulacan and ended up being jailed twice for his political beliefs and participation in various mass actions.^[17][11]

He worked as a full-time faculty member in the Economics and Finance Department of PCC until 1972. He then worked as the export manager of Maran Export Industries in 1973 and from 1976 to 1977, he was the general manager of the Agape Trading Co. He returned to PCC, now renamed, in 1978 as a part-time professor.^[11]

Activist turned preacher

According to their church's website, Villanueva claimed to have "had a life-changing encounter with the Lord in 1973 while at the forefront of a leftist movement". At that time, he was also leading his family (and other families) in his home province of Bulacan in an uphill, protracted legal battle as he himself became a victim of a notorious land-grabbing syndicate. Five days after that "dramatic encounter with God", Bro. Eddie was brought face to face with a miracle he could never forget: the land-grabbers were arrested and detained.^[18]

On October 5, 1978, Villanueva founded the Jesus is Lord Church formerly named Jesus is Lord Fellowship, "which started with just 15 members from his Bible studies". In 2007, "JIL said it has over three million members today in 18 cities in Metro Manila, 80 provinces in the Philippines and 200 countries in the world. Most members abroad are overseas Filipino workers and their families." ^[19][6]

On homosexuality

Villanueva is against homosexuality; he said in an interview^[20] "Sabi ng Good Book, huwag gayahin 'yung nangyari sa Sodom and Gomorrah dahil darating ang paggunaw sa isang bansa 'pag 'yun ay ginawa" (According to the Good Book, don't imitate what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah because judgement will befall on the country if it's done.)

Awards and various citations

Villanueva was ordained Minister of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in 1979 by the California-based Victory in Christ Church and International Ministries. He has also been conferred the office of Episcopacy by the Sectarian Body of Christ in the Philippines in April 1996. Two months later, Villanueva received the Gintong Ama (Golden Father) award for Socio-Civic/Religious Sector from the Golden Mother and Father Foundation in June 1996.^[21][22]

In February 2001, Brother Eddie received the EDSA People Power Freedom Award for ZOE TV 11 for its fair coverage of the People Power II movement. He founded and owns ZOE Broadcasting Network Inc. and operates Channel 11 on Filipino television. Bro. Eddie hosts three ZOE programs, Diyos at Bayan, PJM (Philippines for Jesus Movement) Forum and Jesus The Healer.^[22][11]

Politics

2004 presidential bid

Villanueva's campaign in the 2004 Philippine presidential election never went unnoticed because he was the only candidate with a very strong religious identity as he is, as noted above, the founder and senior bishop of the Jesus Is Lord International, an independent Pentecostal group that has branches in Asia, Europe, and America. He campaigns on the claim that he is the only moral candidate for president, and that he has a program to eradicate corruption and restore morality in government. His campaigns carried both religious and political colors with the "V" finger sign representing Dios at Bayan (God and Nation).

He was the only presidential candidate who was claimed to have gathered an audience of millions in one place, making his campaign subject to arguments as to just what was the exact number of person who attended. In his Quirino grandstand campaign, his supporters claimed that they reached 3 million, but the conservative estimates of the police and security forces was only 600 thousand. This was followed by another major political rally at Ayala Avenue in Makati City where his supporters claimed the crowd reached 100,000 but the policemen estimated it to be only 10,000. His last grand campaign was done four days before the election at the Luneta Park and they claimed they reached five million in the crowd, but the national television news programs covered the event saying the crowd reached million (without giving the exact unit).

Despite the polls done by Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia showing him trailing among the four contenders,^[23] Villanueva was confident that he would win the elections saying that "this is why we do not believe in the surveys of the two companies that are usually commissioned by political parties here — because the more than three million human bodies (at my rally) can indicate the real results of the survey."^[24]

He was the only presidential candidate who did not spend much during his campaigns as most, if not all of the campaign materials, including television advertisements were donated by his followers. His campaigns called for an alternative leadership, which he called righteous leadership based on a certain Biblical passage that says, "Righteousness exalts a nation."

Because of his religious identity he was accused of running for the presidency because of his religious interest and detractors stated that if elected his main goal would be converting the nation to Pentecostalism, a charge unlikely to be ignored in the Philippines, the third-largest Roman Catholic country in the world.

Villanueva's campaigns were marked with persuasion, praying, spontaneity of words, crowd singing (a carry over of the Pentecostals' Praise & Worship practice) and celebrity supporters. Among them were Coney Reyes, Karla Martinez, Piolo Pascual, Gary Valenciano, Donita Rose, Yoyoy Villame, Nonoy Zuniga, Jeremias Jangad, Christian Bautista, and many others.

These elements made his campaign distinct from the others, but certainly did not translate into much success at the ballot box.

A former supporter of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, he has turned into one of her most rabid critics after the election. He remained to be one of the visible figures of the opposition side, who called for the resignation of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for alleged election fraud and corruption.^[11]

2010 presidential bid

Bro. Eddie Villanueva together with Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor Nur Misuari and broadcast journalist Kata Inocencio during his 2010 presidential campaigning under the Bangon Pilipinas

Villanueva ran again for the 2010 presidential election where he lost for the second time; he finished fifth out of nine presidential candidates with 1,125,878 votes or 3.12% of the total votes.^{[1][2][7][11]}

2013 Senatorial Bid

His son, Joel Villanueva, is a potential candidate of the dominant Liberal Party for the Senate in the next year elections, yet he quit in the race due to Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III needing him to remain as the chairman of TESDA.^[25] On December 20, 2012, Villanueva replaced partymate Israel Virgines to run for the 2013 Senate Elections.^[2][3][11]

See also

• Bangon Pilipinas Party
• Jesus is Lord Church
• Philippine general election, 2004
• Philippine general election, 2010
• Philippine general election, 2013

References

External links

• Bro. Eddie Villanueva official website
• Bangon Pilipinas official website
• Bangon Pilipinas Platform
• Jesus is Lord Church
• Bagong Pilipinas, Bagong Pilipino Movement
• Will you vote for Bro. Eddie Villanueva for President? - 2010 Philippines Election Poll