By Dennis Carcamo

The evangelical group Jesus Is Lord Movement is set to announce today its list of senatorial candidates.

Televangelist Bro. Eddie Villanueva, who lost in the 2004 presidential race, will make public his group’s choices at the historic Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan.

JIL’s candidates will also be supported by members of Bangon Pilipinas, Villanueva’s political party when he ran in the 2004 presidential race, and Philippines for Jesus Movement.

Andrea Echavez, media relations officer of Bangon Pilipinas, said this would be the first time that Villanueva would be endorsing candidates.

“Brother Eddie is expected to endorse three to four senatorial candidates during the event,” Echavez said.

JIL, Bangon and PJM have a combined membership of five million worldwide, including 200,000 Filipino workers overseas.

Earlier, Cibac party-list Rep. Joel Villanueva, chairman of the JIL’s committee on political and public concern, earlier said only Genuine Opposition bets re-electionist Senators Panfilo Lacson, Manuel Villar Jr. and Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano made it into their list.

Villanueva said they do not only consider character, but also see to it that a candidate has “competence, integrity, courage, patriotism and principled existence.”

While JIL is not practicing block voting, he said they could still influence people’s choice by guiding them in choosing the right candidates to vote for.

“It’s the duty of the church to guide them. But we will not force our members to vote just for anybody. There are parameters,” Villanueva added.

While JIL and other groups have endorsed several senatorial candidates, the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines opted to remain non-partisan.

But it came out with guidelines for voters in choosing candidates.