Marcos assures Quiboloy: US won’t be allowed to meddle in cases

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday assured fugitive televangelist Apollo Quiboloy that the United States will not meddle in his cases and all proceedings would be fair.

“To Pastor Quiboloy, we’ve known him for a very long time. Ang maipapangako ko all the proceedings will be fair. Now, as to the involvement of the United States malayo pa ‘yan eh. That’s going to take years. So I don’t think that’s something he needs to worry about, quite frankly,” the President said in a chance interview in Bacolod.

Marcos, however, described Quiboloy’s demands for a written guarantee of no extradition to the US in exchange for his surrender as a “little bit tail wagging.”

“It seems to me a little bit tail wagging the dog — ang tawag na siyang magbibigay ng kondisyon sa gobyerno dun sa kaso niya. Aakusado siya sa warrant of arrest,” the President said.

He assured Quiboloy that the government “will exercise all the compassion” in the proceedings of his cases.

Quiboloy, a self-proclaimed “Son of God” and ally of former President Rodrigo Duterte, was charged by the US Justice Department in 2021 with sex-trafficking of girls and women aged 12 to 25 to work as personal assistants or “pastorals” who were allegedly required to have sex with him.

A Davao City court last week ordered his arrest over charges of sexual assault, human trafficking, and labor violations, among other allegations of abuse.

Quiboloy also has a standing warrant of arrest from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for alleged frauds in the United States.

Quiboloy on Saturday said he wanted a written guarantee from the government that “there will be no American interference and no extraordinary rendition” in the case if he surrenders to face charges in the Philippines.

“Unless you give me the guarantee I’m looking for, you won’t see me. Go ahead and hunt me down,” Quiboloy said in a voice clip posted on the YouTube channel of his church’s television network Sonshine Media.

“I’d rather die at the hands of the Filipinos, for my blood to spill here in my country, than to die at the hands of the American authorities who are overseas, in their country,” he said.

He alleged that President Marcos’s government had “conspired” with the FBI and CIA to “hand me over to the Americans.”

If his demands were met, Quiboloy said: “I will appear and deal with all those cases, no matter where you bring them, here in the Philippines.”

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