MANILA (UCAN) -- Senior Catholics today welcomed the announcement that charismatic group leader Mariano “Brother Mike” Velarde would run for Congress in the May 10 elections. “I have high expectations if he is elected,” Jo Aurea Imbong, former legal adviser to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) told UCA News. Velarde’s Buhay (life) party has committed to promote “peoples’ consciousness” and uphold “the basic rights and welfare to protect the unborn, the sick, the disabled and others not capable of protecting themselves alone, through observance of their basic right to live.” “Since Mr. Velarde is running as a party-list candidate he must follow the platform of the party,” said Imbong, who is running for senator in May under the Ang Kapatiran party. Edgardo Tirona, president of the Council of the Laity of the Philippines expects Velarde will be “persuasive” in Congress. “If he is there [in Congress] to support Church-sponsored legislation, he is most welcome,” said Zenaida Rotea of the CBCP Office on Women. Other officials of charismatic groups do not categorically say they will support Velarde’s candidacy. “We do not want to be distracted by partisan politics,” said Alfred Kudemus, administrative officer of Bukas Loob sa Diyos (opening up to God) Covenant Community. Velarde, founding elder of El Shaddai DWXI Prayer Partners Foundation, is running under the party-list system developed to give “marginalized or underrepresented” sectors of society representation. He was the fifth nominee that Buhay party submitted to the Commission on Elections over the weekend as part of required procedures for nominating party-list candidates by March 26. A party-list candidate must get two percent of total votes cast in the elections to gain one of the 57 seats reserved for party-lists in the House of Representatives. A party-list is allowed up to three seats. More than 43 of some 187 approved party-list groups had reportedly filed the certificate of nomination of their nominees as of yesterday. Approved party-lists include those claiming to represent people such as security guards and pedicab drivers. PR09221/1594 March 24, 2010 36 EM-lines (336 words) Church leaders challenge Aquino over reproductive health bill Religious leaders who run for presidency ´could be helping opponents´ ´Church should not abandon flock to political wolves´ Bishops urge Catholics to prepare spiritually for 2010 election