A PRO-child advocacy group said cult leader Jey Rence Quilario should be imprisoned and his cult, the Socorro Bayanihan Services, be disbanded for the safety of its members who testified against him at the Senate inquiry on Thursday.
Lawyer Fionah Bojos of the Cebu for Human Rights, the group that helped document the abuses of Quilario said cult members in Socorro town are deeply agitated after watching the Senate inquiry.
She feared that agitated cult members might get back at the families of the minors who testified at the senate investigation last Thursday.
Three minors using their pseudonyms ‘Jane,’ ‘Coco,’ and ‘Renz’ told senators that Quilario, who is also believed to be promoting an end-of-the-world ideology, forced them to marry other members who are older than them.
“Cults in backward agriculture communities are always dangerous,” Bojos said.
Bojos called on the senators to draft a law outlawing cults in the Philippines.
Socorro Mayor Riza Timcang called for police reinforcement amid threats that the remaining cult members will stage a protest action in Socorro town.
“There is a real threat and imminent danger of violence escalation from agitated members,” Timcang told reporters in Manila.
The Socorro Bayanihan Services has at least 3,500 members including children. They lived in a small village on a mountain heavily guarded by its members who called themselves “the army of God.”
‘Renz,’ one of the minor who testified, said he like other children like him were trained to be a soldier of the “an army of God” despite being only 12 years old.
“Our leaders forbid us children to go to school and punish us by putting us in foxholes if we committed infractions,” Renz testified.
Renz said he left the group and escaped because, at the age of 12 years, he still did not know how to write.
Mayor Timcang said more than 847 children from the group have dropped out of school since 2019.
A 15-year-old girl, ‘Jane’, not her real name, told senators Quilaro also known as Senior Agila (Eagle) forced her to marry an 18-year-old man when she was 13 years old.
“We were later brought to a room where our leader told my husband to rape me,” Jane testified.
Quilario and the other leaders repeatedly denied the accusations made by the minors and other former members of the cult.
“Hindi po, hindi po nangyayari,” Quilario said.
Quilario said he did not disallow the children from leaving their village in Sitio Kapihan, Socorro town.
One of the leaders, former Mayor Mamerto Galanida, said he was not aware that the allegations of forced marriage, rape, and forced recruitment occurred in their village.
Senator Risa Hontiveros cited Quilario, Galanida, and other cult leaders Janeth Ajoc and Karen Sanico for contempt.
Senator Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa, chair of the Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs ordered the detention of the four cult leaders in the Senate.
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