Fifteen days after making himself scarce and promising that he would not be captured alive, Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy materialized at his 30-hectare compound in Davao City and “yielded” to agents of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) on Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. Four of his trusted aides and co-respondents surrendered,
Quiboloy, who heads the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KJOC) cult in Davao City, had refused to surrender after he was slapped with a raft of criminal complaints ranging from child abuse to human trafficking by courts in Davao City and Pasig. A close ally of former president Rodrigo Duterte, Quiboloy has demanded the resignation of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and condemned the US for seeking his “extraordinary rendition” since he is wanted for wire fraud, child abuse, sexual trafficking and other crimes in the US. He is on the wanted list of the FBI.
Strange as it seems, extraordinary rendition has been resorted to mainly by the US since the Bush administration launched the “war on terror” after commercial jets slammed into the World Trade Center (WTC), the Pentagon, and a farm on Sept. 11, 2001. One case of rendition involved the transfer of Indonesian terror suspects to Zamboanga and their interrogation by US CIA operatives through a Filipino interpreter fluent in Bahasa. The interpreter told his relatives via cellular phone calls that he was resigning from his as he feared for his life. Days later, he was dead, with Filipino military officers saying he took his own life.
Quiboloy’s cases are about sexual abuse, exploitation of minors, the forcible “night duty” of his so-called “pastorals,” dollar smuggling, and fraud. It has absolutely nothing to do with rendition, which involves the transfer of terror suspects to “black sites” and their torture to exact information. All the 911 suspects have been subjected to both physical and psychological torture in Guantanamo. Quiboloy’s camp feared the consequences of a full-blown search at the Davao City KJOC compound and its warren of secret passageways and basements and maybe, just maybe, a big vault that contains cash. Quiboloy, who calls himself the “appointed son of god” and “owner of the universe” has a Gulfstream jet and at least two helicopters. These big boy toys did not allow him to fly to Singapore or Malaysia.
The Quiboloy lawyers insist he was not arrested or captured since he yielded. The point was that he was given a 24-hour ultimatum or else the PNP would comb the entire compound, use LIDAR to trace his whereabouts, and finally collar him. So, Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio was again caught lying about her beloved Pastor. He wasn’t exactly in heaven as he hurriedly came out into the open before the police ultimatum. That the search lasted for a full 15 days indicates the special treatment of Quiboloy, who had assigned Rodrigo Duterte as the “administrator” of his assets.
Had Quiboloy redeemed his promise not to be captured alive, the old man Duterte would have been empowered to “administer” Quiboloy’s assets, including the pesos and dollars stashed away somewhere down the bunker or in the boondocks. However, it would be absolutely awkward for Duterte to segue into Quiboloy’s role as a “preacher” who stops earthquakes and disasters in all apocryphal glory. Duterte would like to hear the KJOC choir sing paeans and dithyrambs to him while they wear those strange suits and gowns. He may also try the “crown of Singapore’s patron” on his noggin like the one that perched on Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s head. Such clowning glory for the bloody couple.
Now, Quiboloy will face the music in Quezon City courts, which would hear his criminal cases, and he’ll have to prepare a new musical arrangement for his concert at the Senate, where several senators are sharpening their knives to hear the preacher’s testimony and cut it into digestible pieces. Quiboloy is not expected to talk turkey since he would invoke his right to remain silent but would go hammer and tongs against his accusers, whom he said were malevolent characters out to steal the KJOC from him. There is no doubt that Quiboloy leads a cult the way the Ecleos led the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA) and Valentin de los Santos harnessed disgruntlement with the Marcos Sr. regime. Then, there is the fraudulent god Shri Bhagwan Rajneesh, who owned a fleet of Cadillacs, and who eventually got convicted of fraud by a US court and later died, leaving behind his tangerine flock in a lurch.
Of course, there is David Koresh, who headed the Branch Davidians, a religious sect and offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventists, and claimed he was the final prophet as he talked about the Book of Revelation and the Seven Seals. A standoff with federal agents and police led to the deaths of four agents and six Branch Davidians on Feb. 28, 1993. The siege continued until April 19, 1993, when agents attacked the compound and 81 Branch Davidians died, including Koresh. Koresh said he descended from King David’s band and had sexual trysts with both married and unmarried members of the cult. Yet, this paled in comparison to the Jonestown Massacre, when Jim Jones, leader of the People’s Temple cult, ordered mass “revolutionary suicide,” with 909 members killed by drinking FlavorAid laced with cyanide on Nov.18, 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana. Jones considered himself divine and had sex with both men and women in his commune. The massacre happened after Jones’ bodyguards killed a visiting US congressman and four of his companions.
