The Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality on Tuesday kicked off its probe into the alleged crimes committed by the Kingdom of Jesus Christ under the leadership of its founder, Apollo Quiboloy.

The investigation started without Quiboloy, who is at the center of the controversies linked to the KOJC, which he founded in 1985.

According to Senator Risa Hontiveros, who chairs the Senate panel, Quiboloy’s participation in the investigation was requested twice through letters separately sent to him, but the latter refused to reply.

“You, Pastor, are the one that needs to show up in the next hearing because you are being subpoenaed by this committee. You are not a child of God to be exempted from the authority of the state,” Hontiveros said.

“Even the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to stop these kinds of inquiries of the Senate, as well as the requiring of people to appear before it,” she added.

Hontiveros said Quiboloy’s absence at the hearing was a “disrespect” to the institution of the Senate.

“This is not a religious persecution. This is an investigation into the use of the beliefs or faith of others to do heinous abuses and damage to people who were wrongly taught beliefs and exploited,” she stressed.

Quiboloy did not attend the investigation but was represented by his counsel, Melanio Balayan.

Hontiveros noted, however, that Quiboloy sent a letter addressed to Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri but she did not elaborate on its details.

Quiboloy, who served as the spiritual adviser of former president Rodrigo Duterte, is a most wanted suspected sex trafficker by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In 2021, a Federal Grand Jury in California indicted the religious leader and other officials of KOJC over the sex trafficking of “pastorals” — young women in the KOJC selected to work as personal assistants to Quiboloy.

The following year, Quiboloy was sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, along with 40 other individuals and entities, due to their supposed connection to corruption or human rights abuses across nine countries.