Apollo Quiboloy
MANILA, Philippines — Even the “Appointed Son of God” can be banished from the internet universe. All it took was a vigilant “creator.”
Acting on a complaint, the video-sharing service YouTube has shut down a channel of Apollo Quiboloy, a wealthy televangelist who wields some political clout in the Philippines but is now a fugitive from American justice.
YouTube took down Quiboloy’s channel on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after a Canadian content creator known online as Mutahar (with Twitter handle @OrdinaryGamers) called the platform’s attention to Quiboloy’s sex trafficking and other criminal cases in the United States and wondered why a “human trafficking priest” could still maintain a channel despite being on the “Wanted” list of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
“Yo someone at @TeamYouTube has to help the feds or shut this account down,” Mutahar said in a June 20 post on Twitter, which has been retweeted about 2,000 times and earned 14,000 “likes” as of this writing.
“Actual human trafficking priest is running a channel still reaching out to victims less than 12 hours ago. Dude has an FBI warrant out rn (right now),” said Mutahar, whose own YouTube channel has more than 3 million subscribers.
Mutahar also posted a screenshot of one of Quiboloy’s old videos from the channel before it was removed. Another screenshot contained Quiboloy’s background as founder of the Davao-based “Kingdom of Jesus Christ” (KOJC) and as a man being hunted by the FBI.
‘W’
In response to Mutahar’s tweet, the support team of YouTube said: “hey, update here: upon review, we’ve determined that the channel is in violation of (YouTube’s) Community Guidelines & has been terminated.”
Mutahar retweeted YouTube’s short statement, then added a celebratory “W”—for “win.” Filipino netizens cheered both Mutahar’s call to action and YouTube’s response.
Many simply said “thank you” while one of them remarked: “Mutahar doing what our government don’t even do.”
Quiboloy’s legal counsel Ferdinand Topacio did not immediately respond to the Inquirer’s request for an interview.
On Facebook, the televangelist’s official page — “Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy” — remained active. On Wednesday, it posted several photos showing him at the graduation ceremony of Jose Maria College Foundation Inc., a school that he founded.
Also among the latest posts was a 2022 video of Quiboloy preaching and proclaiming: “I am the living word of the Father right now.”
Recruits on ‘night duty’Quiboloy, a spiritual adviser to former President Rodrigo Duterte, was declared one of the most wanted crime suspects in the United States in January 2022.
The FBI then published a “wanted” poster seeking information leading to his arrest for “conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, and sex trafficking of children; sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; conspiracy; bulk cash smuggling.”
Separate wanted posters were issued for top KOJC officials Teresita Dandan and Helen Panilag.
In November that year, a US federal grand jury indicted and issued arrest warrants for Quiboloy, Dandan and Felina Salinas, who allegedly collected the passports and other documents of KOJC workers in Hawaii, and diverted funds they had solicited to church officials in the Philippines.
The indictment accused Quiboloy and the other defendants of recruiting females age 12 to 25 as personal assistants or “pastorals,” who were then required to prepare Quiboloy’s meals, clean his residences, give him a massage and have sex with him as part of their “night duty.”
The KOJC dismissed the charges as “another vicious attempt” to bring down Quiboloy and other leaders of KOJC.
On Jan. 20, 2020, the FBI raided Quiboloy’s church in Los Angeles in connection with the human trafficking investigation.
In February 2018, Salinas was arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle $350,000 in cash out of Hawaii on a private plane that also had Quiboloy on board.