MANILA (PHILIPPINES)
The Roys Report [Chicago IL]
April 8, 2024
By Liz Lykins
A Filipino televangelist wanted in the U.S. for child sex trafficking has given conditions for his surrender. Currently, Filipino megachurch pastor Apollo Quiboloy is in hiding. But he said in a voice clip posted on YouTube Saturday that he’d surrender to Filipino authorities if he received assurances he won’t be extradited to the U.S.
Quiboloy, a self-proclaimed “Son of God” and spiritual advisor to former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, is the founder of the Philippines-based Kingdom of Jesus Christ Church. The church has a United States headquarters in Los Angeles.
The church claims to have 6 million members in 200 countries, The Roys Report (TRR) previously reported. Additionally, the church’s television network, Sonshine Media, has nearly 300,000 subscribers on YouTube.
The 73-year-old pastor is on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) most wanted list for multiple charges, including child sex trafficking, sex trafficking by force, bulk cash smuggling, fraud, and coercion, among other things.
The charges stem from a California court indictment in 2021 that accused him and eight associates of these charges. According to the court, Quiboloy coerced girls and young women between the ages of 12 to 25 to have sex with him under threats of “eternal damnation.”
He reportedly required these girls and women to work for him as personal assistants, or “pastorals.” The assistants prepared his meals, cleaned his residences, gave him massages, and were required to have sex with Quiboloy as a part of their “night duty,” according to the FBI.
He had around 200 assistants, many of them Ukrainian girls and women, who felt pressured to ‘sacrifice’ their bodies to Quiboloy, according to the South China Morning Post.
The pastor is also accused of a labor trafficking scheme that brought church members to the U.S. through fraudulently obtained visas, the FBI said. The members were forced to solicit donations for a bogus charity, the FBI added. Instead, the money went to financing the church leaders’ “lavish lifestyles.”
In the Philippines, the pastor faces charges of sexual and child abuse under the country’s Department of Justice.
While Quiboloy has stayed away from congressional hearings regarding the alleged abuses in his church, he has continually said he would defend himself in the proper venue, according to the Manila Times.
Last month, a Philippine court issued a warrant for Quiboloy’s arrest, according to Asia News.
For him to surrender in the Philippines, Quiboloy said in a voice clip that he wanted a written guarantee from the Philippine government that “there will be no American interference and no extraordinary rendition.”
“Unless you give me the guarantee I’m looking for, you won’t see me. Go ahead and manhunt me,” Quiboloy said. “I’d rather die at the hands of the Filipinos, for my blood to spill here in my country, than to die at the hands of the American authorities who are overseas, in their country.”
The fugitive pastor explained that his situation in the Philippines “got complicated” after President Ferdinand Marcos came to power in 2022. He contends that Marcos’s government “conspired” with the FBI and CIA to “hand me over to the Americans”.
If his demands are met, Quiboloy said that he “will appear and deal with all those cases, no matter where you bring them, here in the Philippines.”
Quiboloy maintains that he is innocent. He claims that the U.S. government has bribed people to be false witnesses and to create “fabricated lies” about him.
The pastor said his ministry is peaceful and is growing God’s kingdom. He doesn’t want a manhunt against him like he is some “drug lord,” he added.
However, the pastor can’t impose any conditions for surrender, Philippines Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said in a press release on Monday.
“Quiboloy cannot impose any conditions. He must surrender not according to his terms but according to the terms of the law,” Remulla said. “The law applies to all, without exception.”
Remulla added that the case against Quiboloy was “never a weak one.” Remulla said that there is direct evidence to prove all aspects of the pastor’s charges.
“No one is above the law, even if one occupies an important position in his religious organization,” Remulla said. “The charges against Quiboloy are not ‘simple.’ They involve serious and morally abhorrent offenses, such as sexual assault of a minor and human trafficking.”
Remulla urged Quiboloy to face trial if the pastor believes himself to be innocent.
The pastor said his call to ministry started shortly after he was born. God appeared to his mother in the form of a cloud and declared, “That’s my son,” according to the pastor’s website. The website added that Quiboloy is not leading “just any church organization,” but is “the residence of the Father Almighty, the bodily manifestation of the unseen God, as Adam should have been.”
Outside of his church, Quiboloy is also known for his wealthy lifestyle.
The pastor allegedly owns four large properties in Canada and the United States, estimated to have a total value of $9 million, according to an investigation from the news site Rappler. In 2018, a property of his in Hawaii, worth nearly $2 million, was at the center of an alleged fake sale.
Additionally, the pastor owns a private jet.