Teresita Valdehueza.—Photo by Marianne Bermudez
MANILA, Philippines — Apollo Quiboloy ordered the killing of some of his followers who had left the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KJC) because “they knew too much” about his alleged sex crimes, such as grooming girls as young as 11 years old to be part of his “inner pastoral,” two former members of the Davao City-based religious sect told the Senate on Wednesday.
Over seven months after he went into hiding, Quiboloy finally appeared before the Senate committee on women, children, family relations and gender equality, which had ordered his arrest in March for snubbing its inquiry into the alleged human trafficking activities involving the self-proclaimed “appointed son of God” and his group.
He came face-to-face with several of his accusers, including one pioneer sect member who had requested to be seated directly opposite the close friend and spiritual adviser of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte.
READ: No extradition request for Quiboloy from US yet, says DFA
According to Quiboloy, the allegation that he had a private army, known as “Angels of Death” whose tasks included targeting former followers, was just an “invention” of his critics.
“That’s a lie and if that’s an accusation, I request my accuser to file a case against me,” he said.
Committee chair Risa Hontiveros played an audio recording in which a man whose voice sounded like Quiboloy’s warned his former followers, particularly a certain Stephanie and her family, that they would be killed for leaving KJC.
“The Angels of Death will be watching them. When the opportunity presents itself, they will be dead,” the man said in a mix of Bisaya and English.
Asked by Hontiveros if he was the man in the recording, Quiboloy said: “It appears that it’s my voice.”
“But we need to authenticate it because AI (artificial intelligence) is prevalent nowadays,” he said.
One of those who testified to Quiboloy’s orders to kill was Teresita Valdehueza, who had joined KJC in its early days but still wasn’t spared from his sexual assaults.
She said she was responsible for expanding KJC’s money-making ventures when he assigned her as “national crusade and logistics coordinator” in 1994.
Reading from a prepared statement, Valdehueza said she was promoted apparently to appease her after she sent a personal letter to him expressing her “emotional distress” after Quiboloy allegedly raped her a year earlier in a hotel suite in Cebu City where they stayed after he headed a spiritual gathering.
She said her nightmarish experience made her question her decision to join his group when she was just a 17-year-old college student in 1980.
Valdehueza said Quiboloy again raped her on Feb. 15, 1998, but she opted to be quiet about it as “it was always out of fear that I obeyed.”
“I come here today to share the truth that has been silenced for three decades because of great fear and this is also on behalf of the many victims who have suffered in silence just like we have,” she said.
She looked straight at Quiboloy several times during the hearing, which lasted over five hours.
According to Valdehueza, she decided to leave the KJC in September 1999 after he twice rejected her resignation as a full-time church worker.
Angels of Death
Quiboloy sent his personal bodyguard, Alex Camia, to threaten and to eventually kill her, she said. According to her, Camia went to her house in Davao to serve a supposed “arrest warrant” against a KJC minister who had stayed with her after surviving an assassination attempt.
“After that incident, I heard that Alex Camia was the suspect [in] the murder of an ex-worker who was shot inside his home and this ex-worker did not survive,” Valdehueza said. “I was scared to death when I heard this news.”
Another former member, Eduard Masayon, said he was familiar with the Angels of Death since he had trained with several of its operatives when he joined the 2nd Metro Davao Signal Battalion, which is part of the Philippine Army Affiliate Reserve Unit.
He said the signal battalion was directly under Sonshine Media Network International, the sect’s media arm.
“The Angels of Death are the ones behind the killings of my former colleagues, former (church) workers,” Masayon said.
“The Angels of Death was established to go after those against (Quiboloy). If they know too much already, they cannot leave the ministry, especially if you’re part of the inner circle,” he said.
Its members were willing to carry out Quiboloy’s supposed kill orders because they wanted to prove their “faithfulness to the ministry and the ‘Son of God,” Masayon said.
Quiboloy looked meek as he faced his accusers at the hearing, a stark contrast to his usual tough-talking stance.
Wearing a black jacket over his yellow prison garb, Quiboloy stared blankly as his alleged victims recalled how he allegedly sexually abused them for several years in exchange for eternal salvation.
Keys to every bedroom
One, alias Marie, recounted how she was prepared to give Quiboloy her body after she joined the KJC when she was 12 years old and was eventually brought into his private circle.
Another, 32-year-old Yulya Tartova Voronina, also known as Sofia from Ukraine, served in the KJC “pastoral ministry.” She told the senators that Quiboloy had keys to every bedroom of the women in the ministry where “only girls and young and beautiful women are included.”
“Our rooms are next to him so he has free access to every room. Nobody knows his life behind these doors,” she said, speaking remotely online.
“Just in the middle of the night, he [suddenly] comes to my room,” said Voronina, who joined the KJC in 2014. “You cannot say, ‘I don’t want.’ You cannot run away, because if you don’t obey him, he will say ‘You didn’t overcome your flesh … you will go to hell.’ Things like that.”
‘Around 200 women’
Davao City police chief Hansel Marantan said that based on a preliminary investigation by the Philippine National Police, Quiboloy had allegedly sexually abused “around 200 women” over the years and 68 female victims of various ages had been identified so far.
“Through his preachings with the inner pastorals, per narrative of the former pastorals, Quiboloy aimed to acquire 1,000 women anchored on the biblical story of Solomon, King of Israel, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines,” he said at the hearing.
Quiboloy denied the sexual abuse allegations and challenged his accusers to file cases against him.
“I will face the charges in the right forum, in court,” said Quiboloy. “There is no truth to them. They are not true. I dare them to file a case against me or any KJC leader or member.”
He has been detained at Camp Crame after yielding to authorities on Sept. 8. He is accused of human trafficking in Pasig City and child and sexual abuse in Quezon City.
Others said that Quiboloy had ordered them to use bogus foundations to solicit money and to hurt themselves to cleanse their sins.
Valdehueza said one of her responsibilities in the KJC was to set up a P15-million quota for church members who were sent around the country as Christmas carolers.
Extradition
In the United States, Quiboloy is facing several criminal charges, including conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, and sex trafficking of children; conspiracy; and bulk cash smuggling.
A US court issued a warrant for his arrest in November 2021 and was declared one of the most wanted suspected sex traffickers by the United States in 2022.
Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo told the hearing that the US government had not yet sought Quiboloy’s extradition.
He added that no foreign service posts in the United States has received any request or assistance from individuals who may be victims of human trafficking in relation to Quiboloy’s case.
Hontiveros said proceedings involved in the inquiry “were not easy.”
“One thing is clear,” she said, “Quiboloy presided over a malicious and systematic subversion of personal will, autonomy, and dignity to make his victims participants in their own abuse—psychological, sexual, physical, and economic.”
She praised the victims for their courage and assured them that the country’s laws would ensure that Quiboloy would pay for his alleged crimes. —with a report from Inquirer Research