For some Filipino devotees in the United States, Pope Francis' visit there offers an opportunity for them to pray for the Philippines, especially with less than a year before their kababayans back home choose another set of leaders.
 

“My prayer offering will be for the good Lord to bless the Philippines and its devoted countrymen,” said Cathy Sison Perez, who is a volunteer for the Papal Mass in Philadelphia on Sunday (US time). “May He guide the way toward peacefuI and safe elections.”
 

Kimberly Jane Tan, who recently finished graduate studies at the Columbia University in New York, said Pope Francis could inspire Filipinos to pick the right leaders, noting how the pontiff “has always been a good moral compass for us.”
 

Miya David, a multimedia reporter for the American Metal Market, said Pope Francis' stance against corruption may even convince Filipinos to "vote with their conscience and not the money given to them by politicians buying their vote or groups telling them who to vote for."
 

The Argentine-born pope, on his first visit to the US, is scheduled to make stops in Washington, New York City, and Philadelphia during his six-day stay there, and each public appearance is expected to draw in huge crowds. 
 

For some US-based Filipino Catholics, who watched with awe on TV and internet livestreaming the warm welcome the Pope received in the Philippines in January, the excitement is palpable.
 

“I'm very excited about the Pope's visit here in the US,” Perez said. “I can just imagine the excitement of the many Catholic Filipinos here in the US. I watched from here when he went to the Philippines and was so happy to see all the Filipinos welcoming him.”
 

For her part, Tan said, “Personally, I've always wanted to see the Pope in person since I was still a kid when Pope John Paul II visited Manila and I was already here [in the US] when Pope Francis came [to the Philippines].”
 

OFWs in the US could also stand to benefit from Pope Francis' visit, Tan said, “given the struggles they go through in order to live or work in a foreign country, especially since faith has always been a great source of strength for us.”
 

David, meanwhile, says Pope Francis—whom she lauds for his simplicity (“like an actual Shepherd tending to his flock”)—should take his visit to the US as an opportunity to address the alleged abuses of priests, an issue that has been hounding the Catholic Church for over a decade.
 

While sex abuse will not be a major focus of Pope Francis' visit, Vatican officials have said he will address it at some point while in the US.
 

Pope Francis' visit to the US will include addresses to a joint session of Congress as well as to the UN General Assembly in New York and continue on through an open-air Mass in Philadelphia on Sept. 27 that could draw some 1.5 million people, according to Reuters. —KBK/KG, GMA News