WHAT WENT BEFORE: Christian sect linked to several controversies

Apollo Quiboloy, a televangelist and founder of a Christian sect called Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Name Above Every Name, has been linked to several controversies including land-grabbing cases, a custody dispute and the recent attempt to smuggle cash out of Hawaii.

In 2005, Quiboloy and his group was investigated following a demand by a mother in Baguio City to reclaim custody of her daughter from his group.

Erlinda Rillon alleged that Quiboloy lured Baguio teenagers and young adults, like her daughter, Arlene, who refused to return home.

The Rillons sued the sect’s Baguio coordinators for abducting and detaining their daughter, but a Baguio Regional Trial Court judge dismissed the case when Arlene turned 19 in August 2004.

In May 2005 the sect filed libel charges against the Rillon couple, who were arrested three months later but were released on bail.

Three years later, Rillon finally saw her daughter. But Arlene sued her parents and three government social workers for forcing her to return to Baguio.

Killing of datu

In 2008, Quiboloy was tagged as the brains behind the killing of Datu Dominador Diarog, a leader of the Bagobo-K’lata tribe in Davao City’s Tugbok district.

On April 29, 2008, unidentified men fired at Diarog’s house, wounding him, his wife and two of their children.

He died the next day at the hospital.

His wife believes her husband was killed for refusing to sell 2 hectares of their property for P50,000 to followers of Quiboloy.

Planted to several crops, the property is within the 700-ha ancestral domain claimed by the Bagobos in Tugbok. It is nestled on a hilltop that Quiboloy’s congregation reportedly wanted to develop into a highland resort.

Quiboloy published a statement in various Davao City newspapers denying any involvement in the killing.

In February 2014, Quiboloy and his sect were again caught in another land-grabbing controversy involving ancestral land in another part of Tugbok.

According to the victims, armed men forced them from their homes at Sitio Diolo, telling them their land had been sold to Quiboloy.

Sitio Diolo, home to 20 “lumad” households, is part of the 6,800-ha ancestral domain claim of the Bagobo-K’lata tribe and includes 10 lumad communities at Tugbok’s Barangay Manuel Guianga.

Members of the sect, however, said Quiboloy had nothing to do with the land dispute. They said former Sitio Diolo residents had turned over their rights to the Jesus Christ Workers and Members Cooperative, in exchange for cash or goods.

Source: Inquirer Archives