Eddie Villanueva the Politician

Eddie 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).

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. Stories of campaign sermons being made against Villanueva by prominent leaders of major religious groups like the Iglesia Ni Cristo, El Shaddai, and even the Roman Catholic Church were also spread at that time, although proof of the existence of such sermons occurring to any wide extent was never offered.

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 Connie Reyes, Karla Martinez, Piolo Pascual, Garry Valenciano, Donita Rose, Yoyoy Villame, Nonoy Zunega, 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.

When he lost the election, a lot of his followers were disappointed with him because it took him so long to concede victory to the elected incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, despite his having run so far behind. So many followers expected that his reaction would be totally different from the other politicians but to many he was seen to be singing the same melody with them.

A former supporter of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, he has turned into one of her most rabid critics after the election. Until now, he remains to be one of the visible figures of the opposition side, who calls for the resignation of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for alleged election fraud and corruption. He, along with his son Joel, a party list representative, are dubbed by some detractors as "selfish" and "sore losers", who use their followers for selfish interests. His solid supporters of course deny such accusation.