Apollo Quiboloy appears on his talk show on May 23, 2016, in Davao City, southern Philippines.
Aaron Favila/AP/AP
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Aaron Favila/AP/AP
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Filipino missionary accused of sexual abuse and human trafficking in the Philippines and similar charges in the United States surrendered to authorities at his religious compound in the south on Sunday and was flown to Manila, where he is in police custody, officials said.
Apollo Quiboloy and four other accomplices surrendered at the sprawling religious headquarters of their group, known as the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, in Davao City after police gave them a 24-hour ultimatum to surrender, police said. Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos earlier said Quiboloy had been arrested by authorities.
Quiboloy and his accomplices were flown aboard a Philippine air force C-130 plane to the capital on Sunday night and locked up in a heavily guarded detention facility at the national police headquarters, where they were photographed and fingerprinted, police spokesman Col. Jean Fajardo said at a news conference.
“The Philippine National Police gave them an ultimatum to surrender, otherwise we will raid a specific building where we were forbidden to enter,” Fajardo said, adding that the warning prompted them to surrender peacefully.
Quiboloy went into hiding earlier this year after a Philippine court ordered his arrest along with several others on suspicion of child molestation and human trafficking, Fajarto said. The Philippine Senate separately ordered Quiboloy’s arrest for refusing to appear at public committee hearings examining criminal charges against him.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. urged Quiboloy to surrender and assured him that the government would treat him fairly.
The preacher and his lawyer have denied the allegations against him, saying they were fabricated by critics and former members who were expelled from the religious group.
In 2021, US federal prosecutors announced charges against Quiboloy for allegedly having sex with women and underage girls, who faced threats of abuse and “eternal damnation” unless they served the self-proclaimed “son of God”.
Quiboloy and two of his senior managers were among nine people named in a supplemental indictment returned by a federal grand jury and unsealed in November 2021. The indictment includes a range of charges, including conspiracy, child sex trafficking, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud.
The US Embassy in Manila referred a request for comment to Philippine authorities.
Last month, about 2,000 police backed by riot squads raided Quiboloy’s vast religious complex in Davao in a chaotic operation when a large number of his followers showed up to protest the raid.
Police brought equipment that can detect people hiding in underground tunnels but did not find him in the 30-hectare (75-acre) complex that includes a church, a stadium, a school, a residential area, an aircraft hangar and a taxiway leading to Davao International Airport.
In 2019, Quiboloy claimed he prevented a major earthquake from hitting the southern Philippines.
He is also a close supporter and spiritual adviser to former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is under investigation by the International Criminal Court for his involvement in the extrajudicial killings of thousands of drug suspects, mostly poor people, by police.
