Evangelist says God wants him as president

Student rebel-turned television evangelist Eduardo Villanueva says it is God's will that he become president to save the Philippines from the hell fires of corruption.

"His running is not in his plans," his website says. "It was in God's agenda."

Villanueva, 58, aims to restore "morality and righteousness" through a leadership based on "transparency" and "accountability".

But the soft-spoken economist and teacher known as "Brother Eddie" is dead last in the opinion polls ahead of the five-cornered May 10 contest. In his youth Villanueva was a senior cadre of the Kabataang Makabayan (Nationalist Youth), a radical student group that in 1969 launched a still ongoing communist insurgency.

He became a pacifist after a "life-changing encounter with the Lord" in 1973. He began a small bible study group, took up speech classes, enrolled in the Billy Graham School of US television evangelism, and in 1978 set up his Jesus is Lord Movement.

The father of four later bought a Manila television station to broadcast his message to three million members.