Unholy alliance

Jude Josue Sabio .

WHEN President Duterte personally intervened against Kapa, there was yet no reported, publicly known complaint from a Kapa member. No damage or defraudation yet was sustained.  Although Kapa could be likened to the Greater Ministries International, which is a Ponzi scheme along religious lines, still it was premature then for President Duterte to assert the existence of the crime of syndicated estafa against Kapa in the absence of actual damage or defraudation. 

In similar Ponzi schemes in the US, notably those of Charles Ponzi, Bernard Madoff and the Greater Ministries International of Gerald Payne, the collapse of the scheme came eventually in the natural course of their operations.  Probes were conducted only by media and government regulatory officials.   No US President ever intervened directly.

At the risk of losing his mass base support among not less than five million Kapa members who are based mainly in Mindanao, President Duterte courted certain political disaster in his attack against Kapa. At first impression, he must have been influenced by Pastor Quiboloy who is reported to have been jealous of the emerging popularity Kapa founder Pastor Joel Apolinario as well the ever-increasing mass appeal of Kapa.

Kapa increased its membership only starting the year 2018 after relocating to Alabel, Sarangani.  It would seem that its membership increased due also to President Duterte’s previous supportive position that Kapa is good for helping the people. Duterte’s close allies, especially  Sen. Manny Pacquiao who hails from Sarangani and then President Assistant Bong Go, appeared to be supportive of Kapa. 

Local officials in Sarangani like Mayor Salarda of Alabel, Congressman Pacquiao who is the senator’s brother, and Mayor Rivera of Gensan lent their active support, without which Kapa would not have been able to undertake massive recruitment.

Amidst all these, President Duterte suddenly and belatedly had a crucial change of mind and heart. President Duterte knows that eventually a Ponzi scheme like Kapa will eventually collapse under its own weight. He could just have left it to eventually collapse on its own. But after the elections, when his allies had already a sweep in the Senate race, he all of a sudden found it safe to antagonize the people who no longer mattered to him. He voiced his opposition against Kapa in an interview with Pastor Quiboloy, which had led to reasonable impressions that Pastor Quiboloy had influenced President Duterte.

Why President Duterte risked antagonizing and losing his mass political base in Mindanao that could undermine his popularity and adversely pull down the electoral chances of his successor and daughter Sara as well as his political allies is a billion dollar question.  The easy answer could be that he is too close to Pastor Quiboloy to even think of denying Quiboloy’s wish against Kapa.

However, there is more than meets the eye. Despite the actions of SEC for some time already, President Duterte began to intervene at a time when Kapa would later this year be flooded with massive withdrawals due to maturing investments by its five million members.   Under the scheme of Kapa, its members did not usually redeem their “blessings” but opted to carry over the same in order to earn even more returns. This year, Kapa would have faced the real possibility of massive withdrawals which could unravel its eventual collapse, just like what happened to the Ponzi schemes in the US.

Ironically, what President Duterte did has provided a convenient escape route for Pastor Apolinario. Because President Duterte prematurely closed Kapa,  Pastor Apolinario found a perfect excuse or pretext in saying that the closure would prevent him from releasing the “blessings” to its  members. In effect, Pastor Apolinario has been saved from the potential scandal and embarrassment that would have arisen from his eventual failure later on to satisfy the massive withdrawals. President Duterte has even saved Pastor Apolinario from a possible criminal charge of syndicated estafa, because there is yet no damage of defraudation to a Kapa member.

In police raids, we hear about police scalawags giving advance information about raids to the suspects. Due to this advance tip, the suspects are informed about the raid and are thus enabled to escape before the raiding team arrives.  The treachery is even more pronounced when the head of the police force is the one providing the tip which eventually frustrates the police raid. It is obvious that the police providing the advance tip is in cahoots or conspiracy with the suspects.

The huge amount involved in Kapa supports the view that something fishy has been going on. It is reported that with its not less than five million members, Kapa could have generated not less than P90 billion from its members. A person with immense power could be very well tempted to use his public official position in an unholy alliance with the suspect to make a gargantuan amount of cold cash appear to have been lost, when in truth and in fact, it has been secretly taken away. 

If it is any indication, in his speech in Gensan at a prayer rally in Gensan, Pastor Apolinario praised Duterte even after the President had denounced him in a speech in the same city. If it is any further  indication, in their later respective public statements, both President Duterte and Pastor Apolinario were both saying that the money could not be returned anymore to the victims who are the teeming masses of impoverished people.  

(Jude Josue L. Sabio is a lawyer from Misamis Oriental.)