Part One: Apollo Quiboloy: The Jeffrey Epstein of the Philippines
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- Cool Zone Media. - You see Costco be like, "Hey man, don't put me into this shit." - Costco was like, "We don't sell that baby oil." - "Hey, hey, look, look, don't be speaking on my name. Don't be speaking, keep my name out your fucking mouth." I can't believe he tried to throw fucking Costco under the bus. Costco was like, "Hold up, hold up. This shit you got going is not with us."

That is just keep my name out your mouth. See, if I if I was dead to rights and only lying about Costco could get me off, I would I would take the fall for Costco. I mean, yeah. What did Costco do to you except for Costco? Costco's done so much for me. Exactly. Mostly provide me with olives. But, you know, I feel like if there's somebody that you don't go after in America, it's Costco.

I feel like it's the closest thing we have. Costco and the post office. Like, that's what we have as, like, beloved institutions in this country. Yeah. Honestly, yes. Like, what have they done wrong except for provide to us everything that feeds our decadence? Like, this is all, this is, it's the most American thing. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, hey, you want some mayonnaise? Yes.

Why don't you get a drum of it? Personally, I don't enjoy it. Be an American and get a drum of it. I don't enjoy going to Costco because the aisles are really high. And as a person who's very short, I'm like, this feels like a bad way to go. Like the fear of the crash. That's a good argument. Plus, it's just there's too many fucking people. Anywhere where you could buy some Dickies and like, you know, wild caught salmon in the same place. I'm like this.

This is American, fam. I often just think about that man that got that shirt made of the sticker for the barcode for the rotisserie chicken. You know what I'm talking about? Yes.

Okay, I think about him quite often. Like, I hope you're well, sir. It's a hero, bro. Robert, we've been recording this entire time. Are we keeping this Costco conversation in? That's the cold opening. We're not allowed to cut the Costco conversation. Prop, we're talking about the Jeffrey Epstein of the Philippines. His name is Apollo Kiboloi. Anyway, cold open's fucking done.

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see eye to eye on every issue, but America, we are not going back.

Don't miss this powerful conversation with Vice President Kamala Harris. Tomorrow at 5 p.m. Eastern, 2 p.m. Pacific on the free iHeartRadio app's Hip Hop Beat Station. I'm going deep undercover. It's hard to visualize you with hair. To expose the secret world of professional shoplifting. So you can make $1,000 a day shoplifting. Yeah. And I end up outside the mansion of the shoplifting queen herself. I hear the cops.

Do you think we should go? Listen to Queen of the Con Season 6, The California Girls, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. It's been 30 years since the horror began. 911, what's your emergency? He said he was going to kill me. In the 1990s, the tourist town of Domino Beach became the hunting ground of a monster. We thought the murders had ended. But what if we were wrong? Come back to Domino Beach. I'll be waiting for you.

Listen to The Murder Years, Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, we're back. Boy, we really just kind of dropped media res into this motherfucker, didn't we? Yeah, we did. Are the kids learning words like that anymore? Do they have that on the TikToks? I assume if it's not on the TikToks, the kids aren't learning it anymore. I've become one of those old men who's angry at the kids for not learning.

having read the same things I read when I was in high school. Becoming. I'm sorry. Like the great Gatsby. I feel like you were a...

You've been an old man since your junior year of high school. It is. It is. It is. It is. I have. My brother was like that. That's not the thing to say. No, my brother was like that. He was just like, I was like, when he turned 16, we were like, you're 40. Yeah. You are a 40-year-old, 16-year-old. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of us are like that. And my knees have always been 40. Bad knees. Prop.

Jason Petty, host of Hood Politics. Also guest on Behind the Bastards today. Prop. Yeah, buddy. We go back a bit at this point. You and I have been friends for a spell. And this year, you know, I've called on you a couple of times for some real tough episodes. The Bobby Lee episodes and the Thomas Jefferson episodes, not easy ones. No. And I was like,

I want to do something fun for my friend Jason when he comes back on the show. We're not going to do, you know, some fucking slave holding monster from American history. We're not going to do, you know, we're going to we're going to steer clear of the United States entirely. We're going to do a fun one. I'm going to find him like a nice cult leader or something. Anyway, I fucked up and we're doing the Jeffrey Epstein of the Philippines. His name was not Jeffrey Epstein. If it was just a guy named Jeffrey Epstein in the Philippines, that would be probably irresponsible of me.

you just got me a Balik Bayan box of trash that you just brought over. That shout out to all my P noise. Y'all, I'm going to throw, just tell y'all right now, my stepmom's Filipino, you know, she's Basayet, she's from Domogedi, my best friend who I toured forever, DJ Fecto, rest in peace, Filipino. I'm from the part of town that's like a good 40% Filipino. So there's going to be a gang coming

of Filipino jokes I'm gonna drop in here. That's good. That's good. So many references that I'm gonna drop in this. Yeah. And I... Yes.

Yeah, well, I guess there's nothing to do but get into it. The guy we're talking about today is a man I'm going to guess most Americans have not heard of, although he committed a decent number of his crimes in the United States. His name is Apollo Kiboloi, which I checked on Google right before this. I listened to two different pronunciation videos that both said it differently. Hopefully that's right. But I did my background research here. We could just call him Tito, like Tito Weird. Yeah. All right, Tito Weird.

Anyway. It is, this is finally an Apollo episode. I've been wanting to do, ever since a Greek man punched me out at a deli, I've been wanting to do an episode on men named Apollo. Unfortunately, this is not a Greek Apollo. Nor does the name have anything to do with Greek mythology. That's a little bit weird.

weird at least i don't think it does okay that's not the weird part is what happened right before you said that why you got punched why you get punched there could be a million reasons right a lot of delis so yeah that's just what happens at a deli if you're someone who feels about cured meats as strongly as i do yeah and it's better you yeah you probably said something

I mean, I want to write that script. Like there's some sort of, there's some sort of accidental insult you did. And it was purposeful. Oh, nevermind. Okay. That his sandwich was wrong. Yeah. Yeah. We had the scrap. All right. Um,

So I'm not going to say a whole lot about Jeffrey Epstein in these episodes. I bring this up because like that is what a lot of people write when they've been doing articles. As a spoiler, a bunch of shit blew up with Apollo very recently. His life has collapsed this year.

Oh, wow. And so when – because his story is crazy, news media all around the world wants to cover it because it's just the kind of thing you got to cover. But because it's a Filipino story and most people are not familiar with this guy, he's very famous within the Philippines, but most people are not familiar with this guy in other countries. The touchstone that the news has picked is he's the Jeffrey Epstein of the Philippines. Of the Philippines.

You know, look, that's a little bit, you know, gross, but also I want your clicks too, you know? I'm not too proud to go for those clicks, right? Listen, listen, listen. When you can neatly package something that it may be a little rough around the edges, I may be cutting out a lot of factual things, but it's a digestible pill. I'm with it.

Yeah, exactly. I'm absolutely with it. Yeah, that's the way. And it's also, there's something appropriate in terms of like, we're never going to give Jeffrey the punishment that he deserved because he punched out early. But making his name, like he really has in very short order. He's not like a Hitler level, but in terms of like name that is a recognizable shorthand for evil.

Yeah, he's a verb now. He's gotten shockingly close in a very short period of time. Where you'd be like, yeah, that guy's a motherfucking Epstein. Everyone's like, oh, I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I love it. He's a proper noun now. You know what I'm saying? He's a verb. I love it. Yeah.

And that's appropriate. That's what he deserves. Wow. Wowee. Yeah. That's another Filipino reference. Wow, wowee. Oh, was it? I don't know much about that. It's a TV show, kind of a game. Anyway. Oh, okay. Google it one day. Wow, wowee. It's a fun time. I want to go to the Philippines, especially now that our former Bastards Pod alumni, Rodrigo Duterte, is no longer running things there. Always wanted to see it, but haven't been. Yeah.

I've done my best to get up enough. Yeah. My dad said he's going to move with my stepmom to the Philippines. And I was like, brother, no, you not. I'm just looking at him like, you not leaving the city. Your dad. You know what I'm saying? Your dad. Yeah, my dad. I was like, sir, I get it. I feel you. He's like, man, I'm retired. He's like, bro, we got it. Son, we got it. Elsa got like two cows. I was like, dude.

So you're going to move to the country. Have you taken care of a cow? Cause it is not as fun as you think. I was like, dad, you from North Dallas. I grew up with a lot of cows and they are a mixed bag. You are a city boy. Okay. I don't think you're ready for the amount of poop you're going to have to deal with. I don't think you're ready for the heat, sir. Like,

This is a jungle. Yeah. Anyway. So Apollo Karyon Kibbley was born on April 25th, 1950, about, you know, four years out from the end of the U.S. withdrawal from the Philippines. Right. So, you know, the World War Two happens. Right. Japan is like.

Hey, we'd like a Philippines. And the U S is like, here's Douglas MacArthur. He'll stop you. And then Douglas MacArthur is like, no, I won't. Uh, and so Japan, Japan has the Philippines for a little while. Yeah. And then we come back. Right. Uh,

And yeah, that's the way it goes. Eventually we leave. Anyway, kind of. So his hometown, Apollos, was Davao City, which is where Rodrigo Duterte got his start as mayor. That is where he kind of started his political career too. And these two men are very strongly tied together.

Duterte is the guy who killed thousands probably of drug users and associated people during his time as this brutal authoritarian president. He did leave office, so not really dictator, but very bad strongman type president. And Apollo and he are very close. So I'm not bringing him up just because like, he's the other guy from the Philippines we've covered so far. I know, right? I know two Filipinos. Yeah, I know two guys from the Philippines. No, he is directly tied to this story. Yeah.

So Apollo, the youngest of nine children, was named again, not after the Greek god or the much more impressive Apollo Creed, but after Mount Apo, a dormant volcano that at almost 10,000 feet above sea level is the highest peak in the Philippines. I should note here that I read on Apollo's church's website that he had been named after a mountain. And when I went to look up the first result for Apollo Mountain, I found this book.

Which has nothing to do with the story, but it made me laugh. Mountain Minivet's Wood Valley. Aaron Havoc. That can't be a real name. So if you're trying to imagine what young child Apollo Caballoy looks like, this is exactly, I'm assuming this is a picture of him. Yeah, yeah, totally. Nice.

Nice. So Maganda. Yes. So, yeah. Anyway, I pointed this out. I put this up also to point out that Google is just really knocking it out of the park. I don't know. Great results. Always relevant to my search queries. Like if there's anybody that said.

"Hey, let's do something good and then start not doing it good and see if y'all stick around." - Yeah, it would be like if I started a podcast about all of the worst people in history and then at a certain point pivoted to just doing ads for the Church of Scientology. - The whole show, the whole show was ads. - Just long extended ads for the Church of Scientology. - Why is you doing this? - You ever wanted to clean Tom Cruise's house? Well, there's a way.

So anyway, decades after his birth, the website for the cult that Apollo would come to lead said this about the day that he was born at home. Hey, hold on, hold on, hold on. Time out, time out, time out.

You slipped in the cult he was about to lead. At no point was there a warning that this was going to end at a cult. I mentioned he had a cult. I did. You did not. Oh, I think I might have mentioned he had a cult. He's got a little cult. No, you said, no, no, no. You said you were going to try to find a nice little cult episode for props. I did.

And then you said you failed at it. You failed at it. Well, I failed at it being nice because there's a lot of child sex abuse in this. I was like, wait, time out, time out. It is a cult episode. But I appreciate getting the cult, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I did. There's a certain point at research at which you can't turn back around and pick another topic. True. I feel like you just- We're doing it. You just gave a politician's answer, but that's okay.

Thank you, Sophie. I'm getting ready for my big presidential run. And I just want to let you guys know I'm not going to be responsible with the nukes. That's my promise. You're not going to have to worry about it anymore. I've never been more convinced to not vote for somebody than if Robert was running for president.

I think this is going to go well with a lot of people because look, you know, Donald Trump, who knows what he's going to do with the nukes, right? Joe Biden, old sleepy Joe. We just don't know much about his mind state. Me, you know, I'm going to use them and you know, I'm not going to use them. Well, that's a promise. You don't have to worry about it anymore.

Yeah. You know, I mean, I feel like some people, some people you want cooking, some people you want cleaning. Get back. Get back on script. Some people want dropping the H-bomb on Lake Superior. OK, anyway. Jesus Christ. Get back on script. So from the website for his cult, this is what it said about the day that he was born, or night, I should say, that he was born at home.

The night suddenly turned to day moments after his birth and a huge eagle had perched in the trees outside their home and had stayed there until he was born. So, you know, God turned night into day and eagle watched over him, all the good stuff. On some island, like, yo, we done found the location. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, his family had been was poor, or at least that's kind of what the stories say. You get the feeling maybe they were like closer to I mean, the middle class was not really a big thing in the Philippines at this time. But I don't think they were as poor as he kind of likes to portray them as. But his parents may have been prior to having him. They had immigrated from the family's ancestral home in Lubao after World War Two in order to find work, which is what brings them to Devos City.

By the time Apollo came into the picture, they seem to have been solidly working class. His biography claiming that though the family was poor, they were happy. Now, I found what appears to be a picture of his family from a news report. It's in Tagalog. It's not translated. But from what I can tell, it looks like the kid in the middle because it zooms in on him is our subject. And you can see just looking at the hair, you can tell that kid's going to grow up to own a cult like that. That kid winds up a cult leader.

Come on. I'm sorry. Kid on the left, probably not. Kid on the right, maybe, you know? But kid in the middle, that's a cult leader. Yeah. For sure. Fair enough. You can just tell. You can just tell. Look at all of his artes and cuyas. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Nice hair. He was cute then. Although that baby in the back looks kind of...

Not like a live. Not alive. Maybe that's a doll. I can't really tell. I don't know if that baby is alive back there. The variants and skin tones there. That baby does not look well. That's what I mean, right? Maybe the flash was on. So it's a little unclear to me, again, just how to characterize the family socioeconomic status because his parents became pastor leaders at a Pentecostal church in Davao early on.

His dad had been raised Protestant, like mainline Protestant, right? Because obviously Pentecostal church is a Protestant denomination, but it's not mainline, you wouldn't say. And this kind of put them in, the fact that he kind of moves to the Pentecostal faith, puts them in line with a big post-war trend in the Philippines, right?

American missionaries had brought Pentecostalism to the country, but it was spread largely by these kind of swashbuckling, and these guys are Filipinos, swashbuckling like pioneer church planters who were like Johnny Appleseeds of Pentecostal churches. I mean, the term they use is planting churches and these like settlements in the frontier that are established in the jungle, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Now, if you're not aware of a lot of this, Pentecostalism is a strain of Protestant Christianity that emphasizes charismatic practices like speaking in tongues and what's called baptism in the Holy Spirit. Oh, yeah. These are the kind of folks, they don't just

believe in miracles. They believe that God often bestows miraculous ability and powers on members of churches during worship sessions, right? Yeah. Yeah. Direct. My argument is like, I've always argued that like,

Filipinos, y'all black as hell. I don't care what you say. Like you are black Asians. Y'all somehow they're black and Latino at the same time. Like, so to me, the idea that it's like, yeah. And then there's Pentecostal church. I'm like, of course it is because y'all black as hell.

There also, there's like a, I'm not obviously qualified to comment on that, but the fact that there's a huge American influence on the way worship works there, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That you're seeing in this. Because, I mean, we were there for quite a while, right? Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah.

Yeah, so his father must have been a man of some ability and personal magnetism because he does very well in the Pentecostal faith as it is kind of sweeping the country. And it seems that a skill for like preaching and, you know, like that kind of charismatic preaching ran in the family because Apollo's older brother, Jose, eventually becomes the assistant general superintendent of the largest Pentecostal organization in the Philippines. Yeah.

Now, one noteworthy fact about the Kiboloi family is that they seem to have rejected. There's a lot of like in the area they're growing up in kind of the rural area and like the slums. There's a lot of communist organizing when he's a little kid that is sweeping through the surrounding communities.

And they are very much against it. This is a very conservative anti-communist family. We get very little here. This is something I've kind of read in between the lines and also just kind of based on stuff that happens later. But due to a vaguely defined hardship that may have been related to a conflict with like these local communist groups, which are insurgent organizations.

Apollo is moved away from home as a boy to live with his older sister. I don't know why, just some of the stuff I've read makes me think it may have been tied to some political conflicts in their hometown. I don't actually know though. Also like what's interesting, this may, I don't know if this is going to play in later, but I feel like it probably will because of, like you said, the communist thing. Like while Pentecostalism might be very theologically correct,

on the fringes, like it fringes a strong word, but like theologically liberal, they're actually very socially conservative. It's very like, you know, very much about like your performance of holiness. You know what I'm saying? And that holiness is something that you'd like, they don't drink, they don't smoke. They don't, you know what I'm saying? They're not, they're not free with what, you know, folks would call like their liberties. You know what I'm saying? It's very much like, you know, for us, like,

you know, that's the older generation for a lot of like black people. So it's like, you don't listen to secular music. You don't watch rated R movies. You know what I'm saying? Cause you supposed to be holy. You feel me? And a lot of that has to do with you being filled with the Holy ghost. You know what I'm saying? So, so to hear that, like the, the play of like communism may be in a thing, it makes sense to me to, of those two things being together in that sense.

It may not play in later, but I think it's... Oh, it does. No, no, no. As an adult, he is going to have some dealings with his local communists that are very much not pretty. So this is... I'm not bringing this stuff up for nothing, and I'm not... I do kind of... Because of some stuff he's going to say later, I do suspect that this is part of...

the kind of why he's uprooted as a little boy. But I don't actually know that to a point of certainty. Either way, he gets moved away when he's like a kid to live with his oldest sister. His official biography claims it was there that he learned the hard lessons of responsibility through the rule of the stick.

You don't get a feeling. Yeah. You don't get a feeling she was a nice aunt, right? Well, you know, not literally, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For eight years, he attended school and worked at his sister's bakery. He became, as he would later claim, a deal. And again, this is a liar, a diligent student. And that quote, when he became a teenager, he forgot all about having friends or having fun because there just wasn't time for that in his life. Again, maybe that's true. I don't know.

Reading between the lines a bit, we can probably assume that he was not a happy boy, separated from his family and used as free labor by his sister. At age 14, he had his first vision from God, a hallucination about the end of the world, with fire raining from the sky, igniting the gasoline depots near his sister's home. Quote, people tried to escape into the sea, but even the water was aflame. There was nowhere to go.

Now, obviously, I'm not I don't believe this guy is the prophet of or, you know, he would he's he's actually going to claim the literal son of God. But I also that's specific enough that I would believe that that's an actual nightmare he had as opposed to something made up. Like that's really the whole igniting the gas depots near his sister home is like such a specific thing to bring up that that strikes me as like.

Maybe something that was at some point came into his head as opposed to something he made up later to justify starting a cult. Word. Night after night, the dream repeated itself. Apollo would graduate and attend a Bible college where he finally came to realize that his nightmares weren't nightmares. They were visions of the second coming.

This, he would later write, allowed him to make peace with the upheaval and difficulty of his childhood. Quote, he realized that his childhood was all part of the father's orchestration. His sister was only an instrument, a tool that the father had used to mold him in the principles of discipline and responsibility that made him into a vessel ready for the father's incredible calling in his life. Now, clearly a lot of this is made up. Yeah.

Yeah. God turned around for good. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of this is this part, I think, is made up after the fact to justify the cult that he starts. But I do find it interesting that he describes his sister as just a tool meant to mold him into shape. That's part of how you could see, like, there must have been a real conflict here. That's a very mean way to describe your sister. Yeah. Yeah. And also very Pentecostal.

Yes, yes, yeah. And it also it kind of does mirror the fact that his sister seems to have used him as like basically a tool for free labor, right? For sure. Yeah. On his church's website, Apollo or one of his followers makes it clear that he didn't want to go to Bible school. His real dream was to be a pilot. But ultimately, the fact that tuition and room and board were free are what swayed him. This was his first chance at independence from his sister, and he took it.

As he continued to pray, he was visited by God in dreams, and he was told that he had been anointed to spread the gospel. Quote, the gift was so extraordinary that Pastor Apollo had to check himself every now and then to see if he was still sane, if what he was saying still made sense, if he had not, after all, gone mad. Okay. Yeah. Am I tripping? Like, y'all, listen, listen. Yeah.

Tell me if I'm tripping. It might be the ube. It might have been a bad bowl of dinuguan. Am I tripping? But I'm pretty sure an angel was in this room last night. Now, I might be tripping. I think I might be here to bring about the apocalypse, you know? I think I'm the second coming. Does that seem crazy to anybody? Yeah. I mean, like, look, stop me at any time, but, like...

I'll pull the post down. I'll pull it down if I need to delete it. But like, I think I am the pale horse. Yeah. I mean, look, a lot of us think we're the pale horse. There's nothing crazy about that. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you think you're the pale horse, just keep riding, baby. Just keep riding, you know? You won't have to do much about it. You'll do what you're doing, whether you try to or not, if you're the pale horse. Maybe start on the East Coast, though. Do me a solid, huh? Okay. Please. Anyway. So-

I think Apollo is a savvy man, and he's smart enough to pay attention and see that by 1972, when he graduates Bible college, American-style charismatic churches are spreading everywhere, not just in the Philippines. The most sophisticated of them, because we've talked about on our TV Joshua episodes how a lot of this is happening in parts of Africa, too, right around this period of time, a little later in Central Africa. Yeah.

the most sophisticated of these churches had embraced the radio and increasingly television as a way to reach more people than could ever fill a physical church. And he is someone who sees this happening. He's fairly insightful and he understands there's a lot of money and power in making myself one of these men. And, you know, very,

Furthering on that point, he has a gift for preaching that he finds that is, you know, seems to, to some extent, be something that is in his family, but that he's clearly got, he is special in this regard. He's got the juice. Yeah.

because he had to get all those words out of him. He had a full schedule all year round, and such was his passion and zeal that even if woken in the middle of the night to preach, he would get up and go. He became a famous evangelist because of this. He earned the nickname Preaching Machine. I've actually heard this before in the U.S. I talk a lot about a documentary called Marjo that's about a guy, Marjo Gortner, who back in like the fucking 40s,

is the youngest preacher in the United States. He's like marrying people like six. Yes, yes. His parents who are very abusive are like taking him around and he does a documentary as an adult just kind of about the actual gritty underside of this like traveling preacher industry and he is the kind of person who because he does it a few times it's like a party trick he can just lapse into a 20 minute sermon that is this like

Big fire and brimstone, shit rhymes. Like, he's great at it. Like, some people, like, and this is, you know, it's both, there's a degree of, like, natural talent. And he works at this, right? Like, you do have to. This is not, you know, purely talent. There's a lot of skill here, too, you know, that is crafted carefully. Yeah, nah, I would say that, like, that's something that, you know, the craft, obviously, again,

I keep bringing up my blackness. I don't know why I keep bringing it up, but like the craft of, of preaching is something that, you know, in our culture, we do see as this is a, a spiritual gift. Like, like God has given you this gift and all you really need is just the training in the actual text. And like, once you know the text, you got the gift, you call it to be a preacher, but you can't, but you can't help the call. Like God has given you this gift. So like, I,

it would be irresponsible for us to not let you use it. And then oftentimes because this person is just so gifted, they don't be knowing what they talking about and you can get away with so much because you so gifted, you know what I mean? So I'm always like, whenever anybody, especially around like when people fall for some sort of like charismatic speaker and it ends up being a cult, like,

It's as silly as that is, as far as like you not having your antennas, like some people are just really good communicators. And it's like, if you, if you, if you like snap out for a second and just suspend reality, fam, you fall for it too. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's like that. That's that's where this guy is. He is the kind of person who could just make a crowd lose themselves. Right. And people really like listening to him. So, yeah, he made waves within his local church. And in 1973, one year out of Bible college, he was sent to an expo in Seoul. That's South Korea for Pentecostal youth activists, which he attended as part of because, like, again, the Philippines, you know,

a political situation at the time, he attends as part of the American and Canadian delegations. He is the only Filipino at the event. He is the only Asian in his delegation of 186 people. We can again infer that this is, yeah, I mean, obviously there's,

Of course. People in Korea, but like the American and Canadian delegation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can infer that this was a lonely time for Apollo, given how many times he stresses being the only non-white kid in his group. And it is here that he claims to have first heard the voice of God clearly give him instructions, announcing his divine plans to use Apollo. Yeah.

So Apollo naturally goes to the adult leaders and chaperones for his group and is like, hey, God just told me he's got some big old plans for me. And their response, I don't know if it tells you that like the rest of the charismatic movement is more grounded in

at this point than it is today, or just that they're racist and they're not willing to listen to this Filipino kid. - A and B, fam. Take from experience, buddy, it's A and B. - Take your pick. - Yeah, yeah. - After listening to him, the American missionaries gently but firmly told him, "You know, when you pray, that is you talking to God, but when you hear God talking to you, there's something wrong. You need to see a doctor."

Oh, no, no. They just racist. Cause that's not, that's not what they would have said. Yeah. No, no. Y'all racist. Cause Pentecostal need to be, you supposed, you can't, you can't end church until God speaks. So like, that's why church be last in seven hours. We got to wait until the, we got to tarry to the Lord. You know what I'm saying? So no, y'all just racist. Yeah. I think you have to try it. I think you have to pronounce it as like, oh no, no, no, no, no. When you pray, that's you talking to God. But when you hear God talking to you,

there's something wrong. - Yeah, exactly. - No, every Pentecostal event ends with the Lord told me. - Yeah. - So like, nah fam, nah. - I think that's fair. What else is fair, Prop, is the prices of the products and services that support this podcast. - Let us pray. - If you can find a better deal

I will personally slash the tires of the CEO of that company. No, no, no. Sophie, no. Sophie. Hopefully Goldilocks is the sponsor. Again, another Filipino joke. Right there on A. Montezusa. Sorry, it's like a bakery. Sure. Goldilocks. Anyway. I'll slash a bakery's tires. I don't care. Why not, man? Robert. What? You get some Sophie. You get some pandesal. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. For legal purposes, he's joking. Maybe. Definitely.

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Sign up at WorkMoney. Get money-saving tips. Skip the rent. Get more rich. Sign up at WorkMoney.org slash MoreRichContest for your chance to win $50,000. This election season, the stakes are higher than ever. I think the choice is clear in this election. Join me, Charlemagne Tha God, for We The People, an audio town hall with Vice President Kamala Harris and you, live from Detroit, Michigan, exclusively on iHeartRadio. They'll tackle the tough questions, depressing issues, and the future of our nation. We may not

It's been 30 years since the horror began.

Three decades since our small beach community was terrorized by a serial killer. In the 1990s, the tourist town of Domino Beach became the hunting ground of a monster.

No one was safe. No one could stop it. Police spun their wheels. Politicians spun the truth. While fear gripped us tighter with every body that was found. We thought it was over. We thought the murders had ended. But what if we were wrong? Come back to Domino Beach, Courtney. Come home. I'll be waiting for you.

Listen to The Murder Years, Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Anyway, we're back. Oh my gosh. Everyone's having a good time. I'm not. Well...

All right. So Apollo at this point is like, well, these guys don't believe what I'm saying, but, you know, I'm going to keep listening to these voices and keep preaching. And things go well for him. The very next year, he is adopted national president for the organization that like the largest Pentecostal organization in the Philippines. And soon after this, he meets an American girl and he starts dating her. In fact, I only bring up because he brags about it quite a bit in his biography. Of course.

Of course, he was the apple of the eye of his denomination. He had a beautiful American girlfriend that they wanted him to marry. His career path to the top was clear. People loved him wherever he went. He was treated like a prince.

The detail that they wanted him to, his denomination wanted him to marry this American. That's interesting. There's a lot there that I may be, I'm definitely not the right person to analyze, but that is interesting. Yeah, no, that's good. There's a phrase in Spanish that it may not necessarily be the same concept. It's called advance the race, right? So like, so like what they're basically saying is like,

get you a white person. You know what I'm saying? So get you an American white person and it advances us. So it's like, you're, you're pushing our culture forward. You're pushing the family forward. You're pushing our wealth forward. So like, so when you get you somebody like light skin or an American white person, then this is like the best thing for us. You know what I'm saying? So it's possible. I don't know if this is what he's going at, but it's possible that like,

that's kind of the vibe where it's like, oh yeah, nah, yeah, no, no, no, no, they want me to marry her. I don't know, you know what I'm saying? Like, this is what we're doing, you know what I'm saying? I'm advancing, you know? It's a flex. It's a flex to pull an American. Yep, yep. The next lines in his biography are that these American missionaries who are jealous-

he kind of infers are jealous that he's dating this American girl or also become jealous of his success. And they decide to sabotage him. And he claims that this is what eventually set him on the path to creating his own denomination and church. And it's here that I finally do have some evidence to the contrary to bring up because we are, when it, when it comes to the rest of this stuff, we are kind of reliant upon his recollections of his early life. Here we have some outside information. So his claim is,

I started having conflicts with the broader Pentecostal denomination in the Philippines because these American missionaries didn't like me, didn't like that I was seeing this girl from their country, didn't like how good I was.

That's not the whole story. Residents from the mountainous rural region of Kitbog, where Apollo claims to have had some of his greatest revelations, recalled to a local news magazine, Rappler.com, that back in the 1970s, Apollo was a young preacher and basically acted as a sidekick to a government employee, Major Sanchez, who had been sent by the president to look into the issues facing the indigenous community's

in the area. Now, this is particularly worth noting because the president at that point was Ferdinand Marcos. So if your name is, if everyone calls you Major Sanchez and you are sent by Ferdinand Marcos,

to look into issues facing indigenous communities in a part of the Philippines in the 1970s. It's not a great. You're not doing anything good. It's not good. This is bad news, fam. Yeah.

Right. Today, the Philippines is it does not rank well. I don't like to reduce countries to like where they are in like the corruption index. Right. But today they're at about 116 out of 180. And things are worse when Marcos is the dictator. Right. Yeah. Marcos is famous for awarding his cronies with, you know, the basically like you would get like a job like this. The purpose of a job like this is to reward someone who was loyal to you by letting them go.

Rob a bunch of people blind, you know, with bribes, with like giving contracts to different companies to let them like strip mine shit. Right. Yeah. That's what Sanchez is doing in this area. Right. And Kinlog. These are licenses to embezzle and rob people blind. And the fact that Apollo is like following Sanchez around is kind of his tame preacher where Sanchez is like, hey, these people are religious as hell. I'm going to be strip mining their lives away. You keep them entertained. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. That's the insinuation that people make about our boy Apollo, what he is doing at this point, as opposed to he's just so good at preaching that these Americans are angry. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. As a sidekick of the major, we can assume Apollo made connections to other corrupt figures of the Marcos age and put aside more than a little bit of other people's money for himself because that's just how it worked. Whatever the specific details, it was bad enough what he did with this major. We don't know exactly what he did, but it was bad enough that his the entire like the Pentecostal church in the Philippines disfellowships him.

in 1979, specifically because of his relationship to the major, which is an extreme measure, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't give somebody a left-handed fellowship unless it's like real.

So his claim, the Americans didn't want me there because, you know, they were jealous. The actual information, the actual like reporting suggests he was kicked out by his own people because he was hideously corrupt and involved in a figure associated with this regime that by the end of the 70s was not very popular. Yeah.

Can't clean that up. It's not that bad for him 'cause he gets to make a public apology and is accepted back the next year. So we are, whatever his involvement was, it was not hideous enough that like someone was gonna murder his ass in the street or whatever. But it was bad, right?

Apollo is reassigned after he gets let back into the church to head up a church in Agdao, where he developed a habit of ranting angrily about his colleagues who had kicked him out of the church briefly. By 1985, this had caused enough problems that he was at risk of being kicked out yet again. Now, we have the facts. This is clearly the story of a corrupt asshole who got a second chance he never deserved. This is not how Apollo would later tell the story. Quote,

His heart was so sincere, passionate, and hungry for the Lord and to follow what was written in his word. But he could not see the same thing in his denomination. He felt heart sore and disappointed. God really wants me robbing these indigenous people for Marcos. His heart was so sincere, passionate, and hungry for the Lord. It's like a bad Christian mingle bile. It's a bad Christian mingle bile. He said, but listen, listen.

Consider it a blessing when they lie and persecute you. Blessed is he who's persecuted for my name's sake. Listen, I was bringing the gospel and I got persecuted for it. So I'm in the fellowship of the suffering of our savior doing the work of the Lord. And yeah, literally it's like, there's like this prompt on all the dating apps that are like, how would your friends describe you? And then they write it themselves. And he's like, his heart was so sincere and passionate and hungry for the Lord. That's a good idea.

I'm going to create a dating profile on Grindr in Portland for this guy, just using quotes from his and see how it does. See how it does. See if I find love. Maybe I'll find love. Robert, let's find you some love. Let's find me some love. Because your heart was so sincere and passionate and hungry for the Lord. I'm going to be arrested. Before you drop that nuke.

Yeah. Six months later. I dropped that nuke with a good heart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, it was a loving nuke. So he writes that, quote, what he saw in his denomination was politics and a failure to follow what the father wanted. The cry in his heart was, is this all? I want something more.

And when you think about all the bribes he was taking, I think that that sentence is, has a little bit of a different feel to it. Yeah, come on, come on. On September 1st, 1985, Apollo was scheduled to have what you might call a come to Jesus meeting, a literal come to Jesus meeting with his superiors at the church where they were going to grill him on the fact that he had been telling his congregation all of the other pastors were, quote, unqualified and ignorant. Basically like, man, you have to stop talking shit.

about literally everyone else. - The bishop called you in and said, "The bishop said, sir, I need you to sit down for a second." - Yeah, we are unhappy with you. - Yes. - Yeah, so. - Oh man. - Yeah, instead of making that meeting, Apollo's like, "Well, fuck this shit. I know where this is gonna go. I don't need to sit for this. I'm gonna start a cult. It's time." - Right, bro to vipers. You have lost your way. - He's like, "What else can I do? Hmm."

I have to obey the Holy Spirit. I got to follow the Spirit. I must, Colt. Am I going to listen to man or am I going to listen to God? That's right. And what else was he supposed to do? Colt, obviously. There was no other option. That's the only option. I have to follow the Spirit and the Spirit is leading me to do because the Lord said. And that's what's, that's the, in some senses, as bonkers as Pentecostal church is,

they my mama used to say this everybody that does say it the lord the lord ain't thus say my mama used to say that so like so at least they going fam listen the other filipinos was like body you ain't hear from god that's not what you saying is not factual that's funny yeah yeah so they uh yeah they're like

You know, he has this meeting that he bounces on and his version of events. He claims that he decided to skip the meeting because an anonymous man visited him and told him they should meet up at a hotel later that night so he could share a mission from God. Now, listen, folks, if this ever happens to you, do not make that meeting. That is something terrible is going to happen in that hotel. Sir.

I'm not going to make light of it. I'm just going to say, you know the bad thing that'll happen in that hotel room. They about to... Dog. Yeah. They about to... You about... They about to...

They might turn you into a dobo, bro. Like, do not, do not go to that. Yeah. Now, here's how he describes the meeting that follows. When he got there, the man surprisingly told him nothing except to sleep there in the room since the hour was late. It was 1201 in the evening.

But as he lay down, he was catapulted suddenly into a vision. He saw the ceiling open up to the night sky, showing the stars twinkling clear and bright. He did not know if he was asleep or awake, but he knew it was the open heaven. One bright star was growing bigger and bigger, drawing down slowly closer until a hand with a white sleeve was revealed to be holding a heavy, shiny bronze cauldron. The hand held the cauldron before him.

Wow. I don't know. There are so many things in there that like...

require a level of nerdery. Like there's a, he's invoking, I think it's first Corinthians. He's invoking an image that Paul talked about being brought into the third heavens when he was like, Lord put me to sleep. I don't know if I was awake or asleep. I can't tell you, but I saw this vision and I was given, I was shown an image that I still can't utter.

So he's like, he's, he's like really invoking some like apostle Paul type, like I am starting a church imagery. You know what I'm saying? That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So that's what he's invoking there. That's specifically what he's bringing in. Yeah. Cause I just, I just found this very familiar to my experience being invited into a hotel room by someone who told me they were going to show me God. And then the hallucinations that I had later. And I have kept the words I heard that day secret. But,

But for a very different reason. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, the words you got was from the LSD and the dude saying, shh, it'll be over soon. It was from a copy of that Terrence McKenna book about mushrooms. It was just the voice said, never stop podcasting. That is right. I hear that voice every second of my life, Sophie. Every second of my life. That's just me. I believe, you know. Yeah, the voice is like, so what are you guys talking about next week?

God, just... Yeah. Yeah. There are different kinds of belief systems around the world that believe that you literally sing the world into being. And there has to always be somebody like...

singing in order to like keep reality, you know, like, like humming along. And I, I am that for podcasting, right? As long as I'm podcasting, you know, uh, the, the firmament will, will stay above us. Uh, but it will collapse and bring about a thousand years of fire. The instant that I stop. You are the Greek Apollo of podcasting. Yeah. So keep listening folks.

And speaking of listening, it's time to listen to these ads. You're right, Sophie. You're right. Dude, that was a whole lot. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. That was good. That was icy of me. Mm-hmm. Very.

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If it's got to be clean, it's got to be tied. When you sign up at WorkMoney, you could win $50,000. With the average renter paying around $2,100 per month, that means you can have rent covered for a whole year and more. So you can be more. And when you're more, that means you get more. And more. Ooh, but not so much of that.

Sign up at WorkMoney. Get money-saving tips. Skip the rent. Get more rich. Sign up at WorkMoney.org slash MoreRichContest for your chance to win $50,000. This election season, the stakes are higher than ever. I think the choice is clear in this election. Join me, Charlemagne Tha God, for We The People, an audio town hall with Vice President Kamala Harris and you, live from Detroit, Michigan, exclusively on iHeartRadio. They'll tackle the tough questions, depressing issues, and the future of our nation. We may not

It's been 30 years since the horror began.

Three decades since our small beach community was terrorized by a serial killer. In the 1990s, the tourist town of Domino Beach became the hunting ground of a monster.

No one was safe. No one could stop it. Police spun their wheels. Politicians spun the truth. While fear gripped us tighter with every body that was found. We thought it was over. We thought the murders had ended. But what if we were wrong? Come back to Domino Beach, Courtney. Come home. I'll be waiting for you.

Listen to The Murder Years, Season 2, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Yeah.

But she's just a worker bee. I actually confront the real shoplifting queen herself. Just wanted to see if you'd be interested in talking to me about charges and stuff. No, I have no comment. A mother of three orchestrating all her crimes from a secluded hilltop mansion. We're walking around the perimeter of the house now.

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We're back. So Apollo has abandoned his church in Agdao and he's taken a core group of loyal followers, about 15 people, and established his new totally independent church, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, by name above every name, which is every word of that is capitalized.

Woo! That's a lot of, ain't no abbreviation of it? KOJC is usually what you get, which is a lot easier to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a heavy, heavy name. That's a lot of words. He sets it up in a slum nearby where his old church had been. And as soon as he's got this church of his own, he starts preaching to his first followers.

And again, there's like a little over a dozen of them. He tells them that, hey, this is not your daddy's Pentecostal faith. And I'm not just a preacher. I am now the, quote, appointed son of God. Now, what does that mean? Prop? Because he's not saying...

I am like the second coming. No, he's saying he's the man of God. Yeah. He said, it sounds to me, and maybe something is lost in the translation here, although he does, he does preach a lot in English. Um, I, I,

Is he saying that like appointed, like God was like, you know what? You're not my born kid, but you and I are so tight. I signed the papers, right? You are. I have adopted you officially. You were like the son of God because I picked you, you know? Yeah. Not like that Jesus guy just get by on his blood.

You feel me? Yeah, you were born in, that's nepotism. No, there is an idea. You were in this. Yeah, there's two ideas in there. There's like the idea of salvation is an adoption into being the sons of God, right? So there's like, there's that concept, right? But then what he's saying is, again, I'm pulling on like,

the idea of the Pentecostal idea of being the anointed one, which is like, there's the capital anointed one. That's Jesus. And then there's anointed as in being set apart, being chosen by God for this particular time. And what he's, or like, like the,

Oh, folks who say for such a time as this, you know what I'm saying? So what I feel like what he's invoking is like, I am God's chosen for this moment in this season. I am the anointed one for now. So it's like lowercase anointed. I'm thinking that's what he's saying. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, I could see that being it.

Now, I should also note that appointed son of God, you'll hear that a lot. That is not close to his only nickname. His spoiler for where this goes. FBI indictment notes that he notes that he also went by Sir Pastor ACQ. Not really sure where that one came from. I think that's just maybe his Nick, like his initials.

And yeah, that's got to be his initials. And one of his favorite nicknames on his church website is the extremely unwieldy man who was chosen when the father's hand of appointment came upon his life and he did not fail him.

Howdy, howdy. That's a nickname. That's a nickname, fam. This is the man of God. When your nickname has clauses, you may need an editor. Listen. Oh, man. They still, because like, still like, you know, you go to church with your grandma, like when the pastor walks in, they say man of God. You know what I'm saying? Like you address the pastor as the man of God. You know what I'm saying? So like there is an element of like,

sort of this hierarchy that kind of exists in that denomination. And then there's

the level you talk about yeah which is like oh word so you you the man of god plus like you know i'm saying you're the plus screaming series you feel me like you can yeah we all just got we all just got the free trial version we got the 7.99 you know i'm saying you got the 14.99 version of the anointing yeah he's he's a double stuffed oreo of holiness he's double stuff he got a double portion maybe one of those new coke flavored oreos i don't know

I'm not a theologian. I think religious scholars, rabbis and the like could debate over that. So the next decade and change are a busy time for Apollo. He continued to accumulate followers at a startling rate. He is very good at building an organization. He has a robust media operation that spreads videos of church sessions where he would speak in tongues and perform miracles. And as he brought in followers, obviously so came Apollo.

money. He purchased, like any good cult leader, a forested compound on the mountain that was his namesake. Right? He's got his mountain compound now. In one TV interview, he claimed that this mountain compound is proof that God had restored the Garden of Eden.

Yeah, I got the Garden of Eden. You can come stay here for a couple hundred bucks. It's nice. It's nice. There's worse picks for a location. I'll say that. I'll tell you this. You know what I'm saying? Go up there in the mountains, get that 100-year-old lady, give you the tattoo. Right. That's some Garden of Eden type stuff. I feel you. Sure. Yeah.

I don't know how apples do over there, to be honest, but they got other fruit. They got other fruit. So God apparently also really liked the idea of shotgunning a shitload of money to Rodrigo Duterte, who at this point becomes the mayor of Davao City in 1988 after the People Power Revolution.

Duterte was Apollo's most prominent political friend of the post-Marcos era, right? And Duterte would later claim to owe some of his rise to power to the fact that Apollo's church gives a shitload of money to him at the start of his political campaign. So again, he gets jump-started in a big way by Apollo Kiboloi's cult.

Now, given the corruption endemic to Duterte's regime and the fact that Apollo's already been caught up in some shady shit, you might assume maybe there's some like sinister quid pro quo here, right? Is he backing this guy? So this guy is going to like, once he's mayor, help him get away with some crimes. Don't worry. Rodrigo Duterte would never do that sort of thing. No, of course not. And in an interview for the Inquirer, he assured the world that this was never the case. Quote,

It was Duterte himself who said that the wealthy preacher doesn't have other friends. I mean, a friend he can really trust. Stressing this as the reason that Kiboloi has been giving him expensive gifts. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't corruption. Man just needs a friend. You know, I'm just trying to be there for my buddy. Well,

When you exist in our stratosphere, like in the social sphere that we exist in, it's hard to have people that trust you. You think everybody needs something. Right, right. So you just, it just gets lonely, you know? And like, I just wanted to do something nice for the homies. Right, right. Exactly, exactly. You know what? We should all be grateful that there are people like Rodrigo Duterte out there who are willing to be friends with a poor, you know, lonely cult leader with three to seven million followers around the world.

No one is lonelier than a man like that. - Yeah, you can be alone among millions, man. - That's right. - You can be alone among millions. - That's a beautiful prop. That's beautiful.

Anyway, so the KOJC quickly spreads to become one of the largest Pentecostal churches on earth, somewhere between three and seven million followers. I've heard both numbers. Most of these are in and around Manila. But, you know, a lot he has people in multiple countries around the world. He has like sub churches dedicated to the KOJC in multiple countries, including the United States. Wow. Now, unlike most pastors, Apollo tells his growing flock.

It's not enough just to show up on Sunday to hear me preach. You have to put your money where your mouth is with a steadily increasing yearly tithe that by 2004 was more than $1,200 a year in a country where the average salary is less than $10,000 a year. Got to tithe. Yeah, that is a painful tithe. Yeah, you got to tithe until it hurts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I will not.

give unto god that which cost me nothing yeah yeah and a memorandum sent to followers about the annual tithe but with the signature office of the son of god so you really that's not just like your local tax department or whatever you know that's not the fucking department of water and power sending you a bill you really gotta get on that one you gotta like listen listen you

You don't want his collections. Profit is not worth his wages. You know what I'm saying? Like, will a man rob God? Yeah. Will a man rob God? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So money. He's hitting all the high points, man. Right. He really is. He really is.

Now, money is not the only thing flowing Apollo's way. He began to get access to women as well, many of them very young and desperate to forge some sort of connection to a man they believed might bring salvation. It is unclear precisely how and when Apollo started sleeping with his followers. But by no later than 2002, he and his most trusted aides had built a system within the church entirely designed to funnel young girls up towards him.

His church referred to these people as pastorals, which was not an extant term in the faith, and referred to girls as young as 11 and basically never older than 25. An FBI indictment from 2018 notes,

Pastorals prepared defendant Caballoy's meals, cleaned his residences, gave him massages using lotion, and traveled with him on trips throughout the world to include the United States. Pastorals engaged in sex with defendant Caballoy on a schedule determined by defendants. Is that happening again? That is happening again. Yeah. Yes.

It always gets to a dick. It's always, I mean, because that's why people do this. That's why people make cults one way or the other. Usually every now and then you get like L Ron Hubbard's cult, you know, was purely about being able to absolutely control the lives of a bunch of people and make them dig for treasure. You know, he wasn't focused on the sex primarily, but most of them are, you know, that's a big thing for a lot of them. Yeah.

Pastorals engaged in sex with defendant Kiboloi on a schedule determined by defendants and what was referred to by pastorals as night duty for some past night duty night duty. I know that is a bad one. I don't like that at all. And, you know, the FBI notes for some pastorals night duty began before the pastoral reached the age of 18.

Now, these girls had all been, not all, but usually been raised in the church, which is a lot worse because these are girls who are raised to believe this is the literal son of God. He's the man of God, yeah. He wants you close to him. He wants you to, he has chosen you, sister, to like, you know, help him and help him with his great work. And that includes massage. You can get some of his anointing.

They move along. And this is, again, not all that, not, not completely dissimilar from how Epstein did it. Right. Massages are kind of a key because it gets, you know, it gets them in the room with you and then things can proceed from there. The difference here is that these girls had spent their lives being told this man was divine. Right. Right.

Now, the coaching to become a pastoral does seem to have taken some time, and a big part of the organizational structure of the church was set up to train and funnel these girls upward so that there's a steady supply of them. Sometimes it took years to get them ready for night duty. They were informed that night duty was a privilege and that the obedient would be rewarded, and they were. Kiboloi paid them in stays at luxury hotels. These are often very poor hotels.

women and girls. He paid them in trips to tourist hotspots with annual cash rewards. For the people who didn't want to accept this, he had a stick to go with the carrot, and that stick was hell. Refusing the pastor meant being sentenced to eternal damnation. And again, this is the son of God.

The man of God. Yeah. That's the thing. It's like you want to get close to the anointing. You want to get close to whatever gift that God's given him. Lord has chosen you. This is your reasonable service to the man of God who's given his life for our development. I mean, this is your service. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, many of these girls, as I stated, have grown up very poor in rural slums, not unlike where Apollo had spent much of his childhood. Some of them had parents in the church, but others were targeted by Apollo's agents who were sent out into the poorest neighborhoods to look for teens and young adults who had like...

either had left their families or who could be convinced to abandon their families. So like go find kids on the margins and bring them in, promise them food. And then we can either turn them into laborers if they're not someone that Apollo wants to have sex with or turn them into pastorals.

Now, again, the bulk of the people that are grabbed and are kind of – not kind of, are trafficked are men, right? Yeah. Because these are – he also needs workers, right? And these people are inducted into the church. They're made to sever ties with their family, and they're told that they now have to pay dues. And the fact that these are street kids who have no money is unimportant because there's a way for them to pay dues. As this article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 2005 notes –

To support their church, the members are reportedly forced to sell church products door-to-door during the annual month of sacrifice, which lasts from November to January, which, you may note, is longer than a month. I was like...

Do you mean November 30th? Yeah. Yeah. That does seem longer than a month. Yeah. Longer than a month, man. Yeah. Now that is. Yeah. So Apollo also just doesn't let his followers off with just that small amount of sacrifice. He also required people to sell rice cakes and other branded crap year round to fund the construction of a network of 17 radio stations and a satellite television station that could reach 40 cities in the Philippines.

Growth of this sort, the kind that was experienced by the KOJC, is an exponential thing. And by 2007, Apollo was ready to expand into the United States, particularly towards the large Philippine expat community that existed in Southern California. There was only one problem. The kind of followers he might get in the U.S. are likelier to have an understanding of their rights than

to understand like there's law enforcement they can go to, to understand there's media they can go to, to have like money that makes them less vulnerable to, you know, kidnapping like this. Right. So maybe the locals aren't going to be the best picks for past storils, but he's not going to spend all of his time in the fucking palace that he's going to get for himself in Southern California without sex slaves. Right. He's not that kind of fellow. So, yeah.

There's only one way to make these two things work out. And that way, my friend, is a massive immigration scam. And that's what we're going to talk about when we come back for part two. Prabh. Amazing. How you feeling? I am not happy. And also, I'm not happy, period. You know what I'm saying? But also, because the Southern California Filipino community, and I know that...

Sophie can attest is like such a big part of growing up out here yeah you know I'm saying that like you know even in the part of town I was in it was like they you you default with Filipinos when they get here they default to either being black as hell or like Mexican adjacent because they end up in our hoods so like you know I remember there was there was like in my neighborhood it was all these cholos it was all these like Mexican gangs and then there was these like

other cholos that kind of like they talk like black dudes you know i'm saying but they dress like like cholos but then they look asian and i was like what what are y'all but y'all go to the same churches we go to because again they pentecostal and then it's like oh so manila sunset so that restaurant that's not that's not mexican food you're saying like so i'm just saying all that to say

the it's been such a community that we're so intertwined with to know more of this past is like will i be will i be you know it sucks but it's just like dang that's what y'all been going y'all y'all was going to the whole time while we was going through the war on drugs that's what was happening with y'all you know anyway all right everybody well just out here selling jesus's calamansi just hollow hollow for jesus

Anyway, I'm going to sell something. I don't know what. But you know what? Sophie's going to be angry. And that's the note to end on. Yep. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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