Arrested Philippine televangelist confronted in the Senate by women he's accused of sexually abusing

MANILA, Philippines — Former followers of an arrested Filipino televangelist confronted him in a Senate hearing Wednesday, accusing him of repeatedly abusing them sexually by portraying the assaults as their religious duty to the “appointed son of God."

Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who was brought to the Senate under heavy police security, denied the allegations from several women, including some from Ukraine as well as the Philippines. He challenged his accusers to file criminal complaints so he could face them in court.

The 74-year-old preacher said he could not discuss his response because criminal charges against him, including sexually abusing women and human trafficking, were already being heard in two Philippine courts.

Yulya Voronina told the Senate hearing through a video link from Ukraine that Quiboloy and his key aides allegedly forced her and other victims into agreeing to have sex with him through religious deception and coercion.

"They always used the Bible as an instrument to convince us to do it,” she said, adding that at least nine other Ukrainian women became members of Quiboloy’s group, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, based in the southern Philippine city of Davao.

The women took steps to avoid being sexually abused but Voronina said Quiboloy had access to their rooms in the sprawling religious complex, and his aides also helped coerce them into submission.

"If you say, `I don’t want,’ Quiboloy would say, `you will go to hell,’” Voronina said. “They will punish and call us, scold us in a meeting and put us in shame, saying that we were ungrateful because the pastor gave us everything.”

She managed to leave eventually and returned to Ukraine.

Filipina Teresita Valdehueza testified at the Senate hearing that she became a member of Quiboloy’s church at age 17 in 1980 as part of her deep faith. She revered him for years but said she was also sexually abused by him eventually in a Philippine hotel like three other Filipino women she knew who alternately slept with him.

Quiboloy “violated me with his lustful act that left me in shock," Valdehueza said. After the assault, she said he told her, “This is the fulfillment of God’s revelation."

“Quiboloy presented himself like a god and gradually took over the mind and bodies of his victims,” said Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who led the Senate hearing. He “presided over a malicious and systematic subversion of personal will, autonomy and dignity to make his victims participants in their own abuse — psychological, sexual, physical and economic.”

Philippine police officials investigating Quiboloy told senators that up to 200 women may have been victimized by him over many years, including 68 sexual abuse victims who have been identified by them.

Aside from the criminal charges he's facing in two Philippine courts, Quiboloy may have to answer more criminal complaints, according to police officials, who alleged during the Senate hearing that Quiboloy's organization maintained an armed group, which may have committed criminal violations.

Once among the most influential religious televangelists in the Philippines, Quiboloy backed the successful 2016 candidacy of President Rodrigo Duterte, whose deadly anti-drugs crackdown is being investigated by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity.

In response to a question, Quiboloy told the Senate that his church has about 7 million members and supporters worldwide. But police officials disputed his claim and said he has fewer than 8,000 followers in the Philippines and abroad.

Early this year, Quiboloy went into hiding after a Philippine court ordered his arrest and that of several others over allegations of child and sexual abuse and human trafficking. The Philippine Senate separately ordered his arrest for failing to appear at committee hearings investigating the allegations.

He faced similar criminal charges in the United States, where federal prosecutors in 2021 announced his indictment, along with two of his top administrators. The expanded indictment contained a raft of charges, including conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud.

A U.S. federal warrant for Quiboloy’s arrest was issued in November 2021 and he landed on the FBI’s most-wanted list, his face splashed on the agency’s globally circulated posters of fugitives.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo told the Senate hearing there has been no request by the United States so far for Quiboloy's extradition. The preacher has accused U.S. authorities of conspiring with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against him, a charge the Philippine leader has denied.