History
Born in Catanduanes, Velarde earned a surveying degree from a college in Manila. With a company bonus, he started buying land and developing residential subdivisions south of the city. He did well until 1983, when political turmoil sent the Philippine economy into a tailspin. By 1986 his debts, which he had used to finance land purchases, had grown to $8 million.
Inspired by his recovery from a heart ailment in 1978, he started a weekly Bible-quoting radio show on DWXI, a station he acquired in 1982 as part of a real estate deal. Listeners, he says, began reporting that his voice had cured their afflictions. The first was a woman who said Velarde had ended years of migraines. In 1984, Velarde christened his show "El Shaddai," a biblical name for God that he found in a U.S. religious pamphlet.
Velarde then held once-a-month prayer rallies outside the vicinity of the radio station. It is stated that after the number of attendees kept growing, he made the rallies weekly until the crowd could no longer be accommodated by the area. The rallies were then moved to various locations such as a football stadium and then to Manila's Quirino Grandstand at Rizal Park; then to a field grounds outside the Philippine International Convention Center and the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Pasay City, which is near Manila Bay; and finally in Amvel Business Park, San Dionisio, Parañaque City in order to address the size of the crowds attending.
El Shaddai Movement has grown rapidly in the last decade and has a reported 8 million members worldwide.
In 2001, Velarde and Jesus is Lord Church leader Eddie Villanueva, wound up locked in fierce legal battle over control of the Christian-oriented TV station Quality Television (Channel 11) . Villanueva has the franchise and the authority to operate the facility, but Velarde, using political connections, was able to import transmission equipment, the value of which he claims to have converted into equity in the station.
The Philippine Congress intervened and awarded to Eddie Villanueva the right the acquire the frequency held by Channel 11. Villanueva paid Velarde for the stocks and assets held by Delta Broadcasting System (DBS).
