This ought to be a newsworthy day. Apollo Quiboloy, a controversial leader of the Davao City-based Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) church, and five of his associates will be issued warrants of arrest if they fail to show up during today’s hearing.
Yesterday, the Department of Justice ordered to file of a case for sexual abuse of a minor against Quiboloy in Davao City, and another case for qualified human trafficking in Pasig City.
Newsworthy, not because Quiboloy (who claims to be the Appointed Son of God) allegedly abused sexually her female church members, but because he was the spiritual adviser then of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD).
Preachers, like Quiboloy, involved with sexual scandals have been a dime a dozen. An online article Legendary Pastors Who Fell From Grace by Genevieve Carlton ran through the list of not so few such pastors, seven stories of them we will recount as samples in this article.
Ted Haggard
An evangelical pastor, he ranted against the evils of premarital sex, adultery, and gay marriage. He was caught in a gay sex scandal in 2006. A male escort named Mike Jones publicly claimed that Haggard had been a client for years. Haggard also allegedly used crystal meth in front of his male lover. He was forced to resign from his church.
Jim Bakker
He was perhaps the most popular televangelist in the 1980s, though his wife Tammy Faye gave him a run for his money. He was brought down by an enormous scandal that included sexual abuse and fraud. In 1987, his secretary publicly accused the televangelist of raping and drugging her. After he resigned from his ministry, he was charged with accounting fraud and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Bill Gothard
Famous for his homeschooling ministry the Gothard Institute of Basic Life Principles, he promoted extreme submission of women and ordered them to dress modestly. In 2014, more than 30 women, including underage girls, accused him of molestation and assault. The allegations included sexual harassment, inappropriate touching, molestation, and rape. He was forced to resign from his ministry.
Shoko Asahara
He might be better called a cult leader. Founded Aum Shinrikyo in 1984, a Japanese doomsday cult, he preached an end to marriage and sexual relations. It later came out he was having sex with many of his female followers – and collecting glass bottles filled with their pubic hairs. In 1995 he masterminded the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. He was convicted and sentenced to death.
Jimmy Swaggart
A Pentecostal televangelist, he started on television in 1975 and teamed up in the 1980s with Jerry Falwell, James Robinson, and Pat Robinson using the Christian Right in shaping the Republican party. He asserted Satan’s agents are everywhere, including feminists, Democrats, and rock musicians. He fell from grace in 1988 when it became public that he cheated on his wife with a New Orleans prostitute. He condemned porn, all the while, craving for them.
Doug Phillips
As the President of the extreme Christian right group, Visit Forum Ministries , he argued that women must be completely submissive to their husbands and fathers. Daughters should not even have a say in who they marry, and women should have as many children as possible. In 2013, he was forced to resign after being publicly accused of sexual abuse and assault against a woman he met when she was only 15 years old.
Bob Coy
The most famous evangelical pastor in Florida then, he had 25,000 members in his Fort Lauderdale megachurch. But it all came crashing down in 2014 when he admitted to multiple affairs and a pornography addiction. He resigned in disgrace – but the worst was still to come. In 2017, he was publicly accused of molesting a four-year-old child and the case is still ongoing.
The Catholic Church
The Church had its share of such transgressions unveiled, no holds barred, in an Oscar-awarded film Spotlight. It tells of the true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese. The expose has shaken the entire Catholic Church to its score.
In my past ATABAY article Spiritual Tandem, I wrote about the PRRD-Quiboloy special relationship whose following excerpts I edited for brevity:
Together with Philstar Edith Regalado, let’s sneak a quick look at the Sunday dinner date of PRRD and his spiritual adviser Pastor Apollo Quiboloy at the latter’s KOJC headquarters. Accompanied by omnipresent Sen. Bong Go, PRRD chatted with his adviser for many hours over dinner of sour fish stew, sauteed munggo beans, and fried dried fish. PRRD appeared to be relaxed, and laughing with his long-time pastor-friend.
“He is not just my mayor; he is not just my friend. He is my brother. We’ve been friends for 30 years, ever since I only had 15 members…” Quiboloy posted on his FB. As the popular beer catchy slogan goes: Iba ang may pinagsamahan.
Today, publicly declared as one of the most wanted suspected sex traffickers by the US, Quiboloy, aka Appointed Son of God, “Sir,” “Pastor,” and “ACQ,” is wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, sex trafficking of children, conspiracy, and bulk cash smuggling.
According to the FBI wanted poster, “it is alleged that females were recruited to work as personal assistants, or ‘pastorals,’ for Quiboloy and that (the) victims prepared his meals, cleaned his residences, gave him massages, and were required to have sex with Quiboloy in what the ‘pastorals’ called ‘night duty’.” Moreover, prosecutors in California announced allegations that he and several others had sexually abused female church members aged 12 to 25 in exchange for privileges as well as avoiding “eternal damnation.” His multimillion-dollar assets have been documented as ill-gotten.
The self-proclaimed Appointed Son of God [as well as the Owner of the Universe] claimed he stopped an earthquake by simply yelling at it. PRRD said he believes the Pastor’s claim and sees nothing wrong with it, and he’s hoping he could possess the same power.
Quiboloy also warned that the world will suffer a fate “much worse than the Omicron virus” if he is continuously “hurt and persecuted… flesh-eating bacteria immune to any vaccine” will descend upon his alleged persecutors. On the flip side, Quiboloy claimed he chose not to stop a typhoon ripping across the country in its track because he was criticized and ridiculed for his previous claim of stopping an earthquake.
For sure, we may deem Quiboloy as a wacky pastor. Yet, this former United Pentecostal Church member has claimed 4 million “Kingdom citizens” locally and about 2 million followers abroad.
Let me reiterate that I did not vote for PRRD because of the warning bell from this one verse in the Bible: “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Matthew 12:34
Have you ever wondered if Quiboloy, as a spiritual adviser, sowed in PRRD’s heart the seeds of the nasty words and expletives coming out of his mouth that Pinoys reaped during his presidency?
“We are not precluded from being sometimes vicious because, as the Ecclesiastes says, it’s the Bible, there is always a time – a time to be proper and a time to be shit” -- PRRD speaking before the Vice Mayors’ League of the Philippines event in Panglao, Bohol, after days of the citizens' outrage over his “God is stupid” remark.
Head photo courtesy of Sound Cloud
Video clips courtesy of You Tube
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