Former President Rodrigo Duterte has refused to help Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, citing his desire not to be involved in his legal issues.
“No, I will not accept him. I am not the authority. Pastor, you are wanted. I am not involved,” Duterte, in Tagalog, said, adding that he had been in touch with the pastor, claiming that he even called him up hours earlier.
The Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) founder has two arrest warrants in Davao for child abuse and sexual abuse and has been served a contempt warrant over his non-appearance in a Senate committee’s probe into the alleged abuses committed against former KOJC members.
Duterte said Quiboloy was hiding somewhere in his sprawling property in Barangay Tamayong in Davao City.
“May tulugan ako dyan sa kingdom, sa likod ng kapilya. May kwarto ako doon,” Duterte said.
Authorities have been to the Tamayong property to look for Quiboloy and serve the arrest warrants from a Davao court and the Senate’s contempt warrant twice, but they have failed to locate the elusive preacher.
Quiboloy said earlier that he would not be caught alive and would “die with honor and stand for the oppressed, those deprived of justice, and those deprived of fairness in the country.”
Among the suspects,the founder of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) remains the only one at large and is now considered a “fugitive.”.
The televangelist alleged that the United States authorities intended to kidnap or kill him rather than extradite him for trial in an American court, without specifying why the US would want him dead.
He also claimed that President Marcos Jr. had agreed to hand him over to the Americans, suggesting that recent actions by the Senate and the House of Representatives against him and his group were part of the alleged US strategy.
Quiboloy has been placed on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s list of most wanted after he and several of his associates were indicted by a federal grand jury in a California district court in 2021 for a series of cases, including sex trafficking, fraud and coercion, misuse of visas, bulk cash smuggling, and money laundering.
The self-proclaimed “Appointed Son of God” said his decision not to surrender was “wisdom from God” aimed at protecting himself.