El Shaddai (movement)

El Shaddai DWXI-PPFI
Classification	Catholicism
Headquarters	Amvel Business Park, Brgy. San Dionisio Sucat, Parañaque City
Founder	Mike Velarde
Origin	1992 registered as religion in Philippines.
Congregations	300 Estimated
Members	8 million
Other name(s)	El Shaddai

El Shaddai DWXI-PPFI most popularly known as El Shaddai (Hebrew for God Almighty, which is one of the names of God) is the biggest Catholic Charismatic Renewal group in the Philippines. It is currently headed by Brother Mike Velarde, its servant leader and founder. Manila Auxiliary Bishop Teodoro Bacani of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines serves as its spiritual director.

Inspired by his recovery from a heart ailment in 1978, Mike Velarde 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. In 1984, Velarde called his show "El Shaddai," a biblical name for God that he found in an American religious pamphlet.

Velarde then held monthly prayer rallies outside the vicinity of the radio station. As 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 transferring several times to the Quirino Grandstand at Rizal Park in Manila; the open grounds outside the Philippine International Convention Center and the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Pasay City near Manila Bay; and finally in Amvel Business Park, Barangay San Dionisio, Parañaque City (a site owned by the family) in order to accommodate the movement's followers.

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