OPINION

Keep “religious” organizations in check

BY PAULA VALERO | NOVEMBER 22, 2023

Socorro Bayanihan Services Inc. (SBSI) is now a cult known for its members and leaders showing blind obedience and faith towards their ‘messiah,’ Jey Rence Quilario. He was arrested on November 7 and now faces 21 charges along with 12 SBSI members. Our country's freedom of faith and religion aside, abuses of power and members should not be possible within the allowed system.

Quilario's charges include nine counts of qualified human trafficking, eight counts of child abuse, and four counts of facilitation of child marriage. The last straw and the main reason whistleblowers came forward to authorities is because of the organization's dark practice of forced child marriage, making it a serious concern to society.

Quilario, otherwise known as "Senior Agila," poses as a beacon of light to the vulnerable individuals in its organization, persuading them to marry off their children: girls as young as 12 and boys as young as 18. Exploiting their naivety and doing these “healing” traditions where they would make them eat goat feces to allegedly “cure” illnesses and force children into military training under the guise of being “Soldiers of God.”

All of these inhumane laws are put in place just to be “saved from hell,” according to their messiah. Senator Risa Hontiveros reported that more than 200 infants under the age of four have allegedly passed away due to the refusal of SBSI leaders to provide medical attention that the parents were requesting.

But what makes a cult? According to a CNN report, leaders that proclaim themselves with divinity, a closed group, thought reform, exploitation of members, and imposition of the idea that if you leave them, terrible things will happen are what make a cult. These are aspects that SBSI shows and are part of the reason why their practices are now being thoroughly investigated.

Cults, especially those with charismatic leaders proclaiming to be saviors, have a track record of becoming harmful to their members. Throughout history, mass murder-suicides, like the Jonestown incident in the late 1970s, have proved that allowing powerful people to abuse their members can lead down destructive paths.

Philippines' Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, a self-proclaimed Son of God and a leader of his own religious organization is currently wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) because of sexual abuses committed within his organization.

In light of the alarming discovery of the underlying inhumane acts of the SBSI cult and its efforts to perform insidious tactics of manipulation, deception, and exploitation, it is imperative to stop the dangers this cult poses to vulnerable individuals, especially children. It is also important to increase awareness, vigilance, and protective measures to counter its influence and safeguard the well-being of potential victims of other similar cults posing as organizations.

Early child marriages reportedly have negative effects that could ruin children's bodies and mental health. With the cult ensuring marriage consummation, children are vulnerable to these negative effects.

A study from the Journal of Medical Care Organization reported that high-risk pregnancies are one of the biggest consequences as their underdeveloped bodies cannot handle bearing a child. This means that physical illnesses and even sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) can transfer to these children.

As mentioned in a study from PubMed, depression, stress, substance misuse, and suicidal tendencies are the possible mental effects on the mere adolescents who were forced by the organization to be subjected to child marriages.

Despite their practices being unconventional and frowned upon by the public, this organization was able to utilize the universal laws, as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides in Article 18: "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion." This made them gain the right to make their own beliefs and traditions as an organization.

With the intensity of the “laws” that they had, they should not have been given the right to start an organization at all. The cult not only gave mental and physical trauma to the children who were forced to submit to marriage but also caused 200 babies to die due to negligence, and this represents a distressing example of how charismatic leaders can exploit human vulnerabilities and manipulate individuals into doing things that are solely beneficial to their leaders.