A fugitive Filipino preacher wanted for sexual abuse and human trafficking in both the Philippines and the United States yesterday surrendered to police in the country’s south, bringing an end to a months-long manhunt.
Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. announced that Apollo Quiboloy and four other co-accused had surrendered in their group’s sprawling religious compound in Davao city, PhilStar Global reported. “Apollo Quiboloy has been caught,” he wrote in a Facebook post late last night, attached to a photo of the preacher.
Yesterday afternoon, Quiboloy and his associates were issued a 24-hour ultimatum to surrender to policy, and did so four hours later. The “doomsday preacher,” as several Philippine media reports described him, was flown to the Philippine capital last night and detained at the national police headquarters in Quezon City, where their mugshots and fingerprints were taken.
“The Philippine National Police gave an ultimatum for them to surrender, otherwise, we would raid a particular building, where we’ve been barred from entering,” police spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo told the media, the Associated Press reported.
The founder of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church, which was established in 1985, Quiboloy claims to be an “appointed son of God” who stopped a major earthquake from hitting the southern Philippines in 2019. The 74-year-old went into hiding in April, after a court in Davao issued warrants for the arrest of Quiboloy and several associates for child abuse and sexual abuse. The Senate has also issued a separate arrest order against him, for failing to attend hearings of a committee, led by Senator Risa Hontiveros, investigating allegations of abuses within the Kingdom of Jesus church.
The ensuing manhunt eventually came to focus on the church’s labyrinthine compound in Davao, which is an area of 30 hectares, and “includes a cathedral, a school, a living area, a hangar, and a taxiway leading to Davao International Airport.” In late August, hundreds of police officers backed by riot squads raided Quiboloy’s compound. A large cohort of Quiboloy’s followers turned out to block the raid, some allegedly throwing stones at officers and blocking a highway with burning tires. It took police more than two weeks to scour the property and locate Quiboloy before issuing their ultimatum.
Quiboloy also faces a raft of serious charges in the U.S., where his church has a base in the Van Nuys area of the San Fernando Valley, California. In November 2021, U.S. federal prosecutors charged Quiboloy with having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and “eternal damnation” unless they obeyed his orders.
Quiboloy and two of his top administrators, as well as a church administrator in Hawaii, were also among nine people named in a superseding indictment unsealed the following week, which included charges of “conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling, and visa fraud.” Quiboloy denies all of the charges against him, claiming that they have been fabricated by disgruntled former members of his church.
Quiboloy was also a close supporter and spiritual adviser of former President Rodrigo Duterte, and threw his weight behind Duterte’s presidential campaign in 2016. The former leader has since criticized the police. Following last month’s raids of Quiboloy’s Davao compound, Duterte described the church leaders as “victims of political harassment, persecution, violence, and abuse of authority.” He added, “This certainly puts a dark stain on the hands of those involved in today’s incident, led by no less than the top police official of the region.”
Quiboloy’s capture marks the conclusion of the second high-profile manhunt in the Philippines in as many weeks, following the arrest in Indonesia of Alice Guo, a former mayor from Tarlac province who is wanted in connection with illegal online gaming and scam operations. Like Quiboloy, she was also the subject of a Senate investigation led by Senator Hontiveros.