Eddie Villanueva - 2004 Presidential Bid

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, 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."

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.