Philippine authorities: Fugitive megachurch leader Apollo Quiboloy arrested in Davao

UPDATED at 12:43 p.m. ET on 2024-09-08

Philippine authorities announced the arrest on Sunday of fugitive Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, the spiritual adviser to ex-President Rodrigo Duterte and influential founder of a megachurch, who was wanted here and in the United States over various allegations of sexual abuse.

The arrest took place after a months-long manhunt for the pastor that mainly honed in on his church’s sprawling compound in the southern city of Davao, the power base of the Duterte family. 

Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos posted the news that Quiboloy had been taken into custody, via a message on his official Facebook page Sunday night. 

“Pastor Quiboloy has been arrested!,” Abalos said. No other details were provided.

In the post, Abalos shared a photograph of Quiboloy clad in black and wearing a white scarf and a black baseball cap. He was seen with his chief legal counsel, Israelito Torreon.

One of Quiboloy’s other lawyers, Ferdinand S. Topacio, issued a statement later disputing that his client had been arrested and saying he had turned himself over to the authorities voluntarily. 

The televangelist preacher, who calls himself the “Son of God,” heads the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) church, which claims to have millions of followers here and abroad.

Over the years, he built his church into an empire and amassed a fortune, including as the owner of at least one TV channel, two private jets, and a fleet of helicopters. 

In early August, with the manhunt having not yet caught Quiboloy, a Philippine court ordered a freeze on his 10 bank accounts, seven real estate properties, motor vehicles and aircraft.

In its 48-page order, the court ruled it had found reasonable grounds to believe that the bank accounts of Quiboloy were “linked to unlawful activities and predicate crimes” including human trafficking, money laundering and sexual abuse of children.

Authorities in the U.S. and the Philippines have accused Quiboloy and other KOJC officials of victimizing female members of the church through sexual abuse and trafficking children for sex, among other allegations. 

Quiboloy had a bounty of 10 million Philippine pesos (U.S. $170,760) for his arrest.

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This past March, the Philippine Senate ordered that Quiboloy be arrested after he failed to respond to summons to appear before committee hearings related to the criminal allegations against him. A warrant was issued in April for the 74-year-old pastor’s arrest.

That same month, in a statement in which he accused the U.S. of plotting to “eliminate” him, Quiboloy denied the allegations and said he had gone into hiding.

“I am under surveillance in the Philippines by the CIA and the FBI. In my own country I am hiding because they can pick me up just like that,” the pastor said then in a 36-minute voice recording uploaded to social media. 

During the manhunt for him that lasted five months, Quiboloy was believed to be hiding out at his church’s complex in Davao, which is about 30 hectares (74.1 acres) in size, or the equivalent of more than 700 basketball courts. 

“Based on reliable information, our client, Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy, voluntarily surrendered to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, specifically the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces, or ISAFP,” Topacio, the pastor’s legal counsel, said in the statement issued after his client was taken into custody on Sunday.  

“He was not arrested, especially not by the Philippine National Police under the DILG … As usual, Pastor Quiboloy’s legal team shall continue to protect his rights under the Constitution and the laws as we prepare for his defense.”

Sen. Risa Hontiveros, the Philippine lawmaker who chairs the Senate committee that had twice summoned Quiboloy as part of its inquiry into the suspected sex crimes alleged to have occurred at the main campus and other branches of his church, commended law enforcement agencies for finally apprehending him.

“You will be held accountable, Apollo Quiboloy … The Senate investigation will continue to seek an end to the systematic abuse of society’s most vulnerable,” the senator said in a statement.

In November 2021, when the allegations against Quiboloy first became public, the U.S. Justice Department officials announced that a federal grand jury had charged him on suspicion of orchestrating a sex-trafficking operation that allegedly coerced girls as young as 12 to have sex with him or risk “eternal damnation,” U.S. prosecutors said.

They alleged that the televangelist had recruited girls and young women, ranging from 12 to 25 years old, to work as personal assistants or “pastorals” at his church. KOJC has branches in California.

Under the charges brought against him in the United States, Quiboloy faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted of sex trafficking, and five to 20 years if convicted of fraud and money laundering.

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Late Sunday, the American embassy in Manila was referring questions about his arrest to Philippine authorities, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.

In June, ex-President Duterte accused the government of persecuting Quiboloy, calling the raids on the televangelist’s known properties in Davao City “overkill.”

Quiboloy founded KOJC in 1985. The sect, and his name, grew in national prominence when Duterte was elected president of the Philippines in mid-2016.

In March, Quiboloy’s church appointed Duterte as the administrator of its properties, while he went into hiding to evade being arrested.

On Sunday night, regional police chief Brig. Gen. Nicolas Torre III confirmed that Quiboloy had been taken into custody from the compound of the KOJC church.

“There is no doubt that he was there. He was in hiding and the compound was so big that it took us so long [to find him],” he told reporters in Davao.

Jojo Riñoza contributed to this report from Manila.