Zubiri pledges to sign subpoena vs Quiboloy

Apollo Quiboloy

Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Friday assured Sen. Risa Hontiveros he will subpoena Apollo Quiboloy, founder and leader of Davao City-based Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC), to appear at the Senate inquiry into the alleged abuses committed by the controversial televangelist.

“The last few weeks have been marred with attacks against the Senate and our democratic institutions due to the fake people’s initiative,” Zubiri told reporters in response to Hontiveros’ statement.

Hontiveros is leading the hearing on the complaints filed by some of Quiboloy’s former followers. On Thursday, she said Zubiri has yet to act on her request letter dated Feb. 6 to issue a subpoena requiring Quiboloy to attend the ongoing Senate investigation.

“In the middle of our efforts to protect the institution, a lot of our administrative work has piled up in my office, including paperwork that need my signature,” Zubiri said.

The Senate leader added his staffers had already informed him that the documents regarding Hontiveros’ 10-day-old request letter was now ready to be signed.

“I am just in the Visayas at the moment for several engagements. But I will sign all these documents upon my return,” he said.

Hontiveros, who chairs the Senate committee on women, children, family relations and gender equality, said Quiboloy had snubbed the panel’s invitation for him to participate in its Jan. 23 hearing.

Like other previous Senate hearings, she said Zubiri’s predecessors had “consistently issued subpoenas against resource persons who fail, without justifiable reason, to attend its inquiries.”

She added the issuance of a subpoena was just a “ministerial duty” on the part of the Senate president.

“But it’s something that I and my committee have been waiting for. And I would even say that the victim-survivors have been waiting for it, too,” Hontiveros said at the Kapihan sa Senado news forum.

The opposition senator added the subpoena was “very important” to compel the KOJC leader to face his accusers and for the Senate committee to hear his response to the mounting allegations against him.

During the Jan. 23 hearing, three of Quiboloy’s former followers, including two Ukrainian women, claimed that Quiboloy repeatedly raped them for years. One of the victims named only as “Amanda,” told Hontiveros’ committee that Quiboloy, who calls himself as the “appointed son of god,” started sexually molesting her in 2014 when she was just 17 years old.

In an earlier Inquirer report, one of the Ukrainian women who identified herself as “Nina” alleged that Quiboloy had repeatedly been raping her since 2013 until she fled the KOJC compound in 2021.

The allegations were similar to the complaints Quiboloy is facing in the United States. Early 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation declared Quiboloy a wanted person due to sex trafficking and other felonies.

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