Eddie Villanueva

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 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.[7][8]

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.[7]

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", Villanueva was brought face to face with a miracle he could never forget: the land-grabbers were arrested and detained.[9]

On October 5, 1978, Villanueva founded the Jesus Is Lord Church Worldwide formerly named Jesus Is Lord Fellowship, "which started with just 15 members from his Bible studies". In 2007, JIL stated it had "over five million members today in 18 cities in Metro Manila, 80 provinces in the Philippines and 60 countries in the world. Most members abroad are overseas Filipino workers and their families." [10][11]

Villanueva is against homosexuality; he said in an interview, "According to the Bible, don't imitate what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah because judgment will befall on the country if it's done".[12]

Villanueva campaigned in the 2004 Philippine presidential election.

Despite the polls done by Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia showing him trailing among the four contenders,[13] 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."[14]

Eddie Villanueva together with Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor Nur Misuari and broadcast journalist Kata Inocencio during his 2010 presidential campaign 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]