Not in hiding, but protecting himself from 'rendition,' Quiboloy sets conditions to face cases | Manuel Cayon

Source: BusinessMirror
Author: Manuel Cayon

DAVAO CITY - Beleaguered Pastor Apollo Quiboloy has set conditions to publicly appear to face his cases in Philippine courts, including assurances from Malacanang and the National Police to prevent US meddling in the litigation.

It also included a call to Sen. Risa Hontiveros to "stop your moro-moro and hand over the cases to the court where these cases will all end up".

Quiboloy said he has laid out 17 conditions before he would appear in the courts "whether it be in Pasig or here (Davao City)."

He came out with public announcement on social media to claim that he was not hiding from authorities but he was only protecting himself from what he insisted was a US government "palybook" to get hold on him.

He posted a recorded statement on YouTube on Saturday morning without a live appearance to also claim that the issues that the Senate and Congress pressed on him were already cases shelved by the Department of Justice three years ago. He said he believed the complaints on sexual and child abuse were revived by politicians bent on exacting revenge on former President Rodrigo Duterte to whom he was inextricably linked because of his huge financial backing during the Presidential campaign.

"If you give me the guarantee that the US will not intervene in these cases here, you can be assured that I will come out," he said. To Hontiveros, he said to let the court decide on the cases the senator was purportedly handling "because you are not a prosecutor and I can smell only an ambition to seek higher position".

He said the assurance should be put in writing and must come from the President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the Office of the Solicitor General, Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla, National Police Chief Rommel Francisco Marbil, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

He said Duterte's political foes were behind the pressure which he and his lawyers labelled as persecution than as hearings to aid corrective legislation.

"I am only preserving myself," he said, and adding that he was sorry that the pressure exerted on him and his religious organization has also dragged into the fray the President and his Vice-President daughter. "I want to explain that I am not hiding from these cases hurled against me just because I am guilty of these allegations, I am hiding to protect myself."

He did not say where he was though but for several months he claimed that aerial drones were regularly flying sorties on the compounds owned by the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) which he founded as a platform to preach and recruit members. Hie detractors have branded his organization a cult.

He said the Senate hearing on his child and sexual abuse cases and House of Representatives's hearings on the franchise of his media group, the Sonshine Media Network Inc. (SMNI) were meant to be a trap cast on him to appear publicly "and to end up with me handed over to American authorities".

His apprehension lie on his perception that the US government was bent on skipping over the extradition process and to apply "extraordinary rendition". He said this would be either in the form of kidnapping him to force his appearance in the US court to face the same sexual abuse cases in the US, or outright assassinating him.

He said the US "playbook" on either kidnaping or assassinating him has the expressed go-signal from the Marcos administration, especially after he came back from a state visit in the US when he later opened the country to a military basing agreement called Enhance Defense Cooperation Agreement or EDCA.

"Not only was the country opened to mutual defense, the cases that I was involved in became complicated as these Amercian authorities sought to get hold of me from the Marcos government," he said.

He said it was "unfortunate" that the US was keeping its pressure on him when he has not balked from the 43 charges, from sexual and illegal trafficking to illegal drugs charges, as he said he has hired 22 lawyers to take charge. He said the US court has already reset the schedule to November this year after three years of inaction on the charges.

"That is why they are now silent in the US," he said. "That is when the investigations both in Congress and the Senate came into the picture."

He claimed that the hearings in both houses in Congress were only scenarios built to have him physically present to be handed over to US law enforcers. "That's their end game".

"The Father is taking care of me not to fall into the trap of these people who only wanted to get rid of me because they look at me as hindrance to their plans," he said.