Faces of the News: Pastor Apollo Quiboloy

ILLUSTRATION BY RENE ELEVERA

The televangelist and founder of the sect Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Name Above Every Name made headlines this week when the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the sect’s branch in Hawaii for possible human trafficking.

Quiboloy’s spokesperson, lawyer Israelito Torreon, quickly denied this and said that their “members are accepted based on their free will.”

But the FBI zeroed in on Felina Salinas, head of Quiboloy’s group in Honolulu, who was on the plane with the pastor when she was arrested in February for allegedly trying to smuggle $350,000 out of Hawaii.

The pastor, a close friend of President Rodrigo Duterte, and who calls himself the appointed son of God, had previously been sued in a custody case for allegedly luring a minor into joining the sect.

He was also accused of masterminding the killing of a Bagobo leader over ancestral land that the latter reportedly refused to sell.