Manila, Philippines (May 2010) - Among of all the church endorsers during Philippine elections, it appears that El Shaddai has the most clear solid number of votes basing on their endorsed partylists. El Shaddai's partylist BUHAY is a consistent leader in gathering votes inside and outside the Philippines. The Born again movement' s CIBAC partylist is also commendable for their consistency of followers in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
The church endorsers who appeared does not have enough solid votes are the Eduardo Manalo's Iglesia Ni Cristo (ALAGAD partylist), Ferriols' 4th Watch (KALINGA partylist) and Apollo Quiboloy's Kingdom of Jesus Christ (ALE partylist). The great performance of El Shaddai and the Born Again movement is consistent all over the country unlike the INC, 4th watch and Quiboloy's group. It is also worth noticing that the major show of battle of religious votes occurred in Luzon, noticeably in NCR and its nearby locations such as Cavite, Bulacan and Rizal. (Even that Quiboloy's bailiwick is Davao, southern part of the Philippines, El Shaddai, Born Again and INC beaten up Quiboloy's group.)
BUHAY partylist (10,880), CIBAC partylist (5,410), ALAGAD partylist (9,268),
KALINGA partylist (3,421) and ALE partylist (32,735). Apollo Quiboloy ruled CEBU.
It seems that the strength of Eduardo Manalo's Iglesia Ni Cristo, Ferriols' 4th Watch and
Quiboloy's ALE partylists are only concentrated in the Philippines only.
The millions of Iglesia Ni Cristo and Quiboloy's vote did not surfaced in the data we gathered from the Comelec website. Noynoy Aquino's win cannot be attributed to Iglesia Ni Cristo since, Noynoy Aquino has been already a consistent survey winner in every poll before the announcement of INC's endorsement to him. (INC learned their lesson in announcing their endorsed candidate too early in the case of Danding Cojuangco, 1992 election, INC's bet lost). And with the report the some 54 INC district Ministers calling for Gibo Teodoro's candidacy, who would have believe that INC vote actually helped Noynoy's victory in the election. Iglesia Ni Cristo supported Atienza as Manila Mayor but was embarrassedly defeated by landslide by Mayor Alfredo Lim. Proving that the INC political force is a myth.
The question here is the moral standard that these religious leaders use when they are endorsing candidates. El Shaddai's group leader Mike Velarde failed to endorse any presidential candidate in 2010 even though many have believed it should have been his friend Manny Villar. Mike Velarde cannot gamble his endorsement to a man who is behind the survey and linked with the C5 controversy. Iglesia Ni Cristo's Eduardo Manalo even failed to help Atienza win the Manila mayoralty, how can INC help a national candidate? INC previously voted for known womanizer Joseph Estrada, later be convicted as plunderer. I cannot believe that any religious endorsers will make us convinced them that it is "God" who help them choose. Gloria Arroyo was picked by "God" to lead the Philippine nation? (Iglesia Ni Cristo endorsed GMA in the 2004 election). The worse is Eduardo Manalo (Iglesia Ni Cristo cult) is forcing his members to vote whoever he wishes to endorse. Church expulsion will be given to any members who decides not to follow. This iron rule within a church does not reflect the Christian values they are trying convince us with.
We are lucky that the Catholic Church does not force its member to vote to whom they like.
Liberty inside the church should be maintained specially when talking about politics.
Religion and Politics should not be mixed.
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