FILE PHOTO: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. leads the opening of the National Peace Consciousness Month (NPCM) and commemoration of the 28th anniversary of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement with Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) at the Ceremonial Hall of the Malacañan Palace on Monday, September 2, 2024. – For President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., sect leader Apollo Quiboloy did not surrender to the government but was forced to surface because the Philippine National Police (PNP) was getting closer to his hideout. PHOTO BY YUMMIE DINGDING/ PPA POOL
MANILA, Philippines — For President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., sect leader Apollo Quiboloy did not surrender to the government but was forced to surface because the Philippine National Police (PNP) was getting closer to his hideout.
Marcos’ remark followed public clamor on the real circumstances of Quiboloy’s capture – whether the pastor surrendered or not. Quiboloy’s camp has been claiming that he surrendered to the military while the PNP said he was arrested on Sunday evening.
“I think that’s a legal question. Pero ganito ang iniisip ko eh, hindi siya lilitaw kung hindi namin hinabol ng husto,” Marcos pointed out in an interview with reporters on the sidelines of the Philippine Strategic Trade Management Summit in Taguig City.
(I think that’s a legal question. But this is what I’m thinking, he won’t appear if we didn’t chase him hard.)
READ: Quiboloy, 4 others surrendered after PNP’s 24-hour ultimatum
According to Marcos, for it to be tagged as a “surrender,” the wanted individual must first have gone before a police station, a prosecutor, or any official authority to state that they are surrendering
“Hindi ganiyan ‘yung nangyari, ang nangyari napilitan siyang lumabas kasi malapit na ang pulis sa kanya,” he said.
(That’s not what happened, he was forced to go out because the police were already close to him.)
Marcos further noted that Quiboloy presented himself to authorities to just stop his supporters who threatened to take their own lives for him.
“To his credit, he was still displaying a modicum of leadership to his followers,” he said.
Quiboloy was captured on Sunday, September 8, ending a 16-day search mounted by the PNP beginning on August 24 within the Kingdom of Jesus Christ compound in Davao City.
The sect leader and his subordinates are facing child abuse and human trafficking cases before Davao City and Pasig City courts, respectively.
He also has several criminal charges in the United States. On January 31 , 2022, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published a wanted poster seeking information leading to Quiboloy’s 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.”