Philippines: Woman sued by daughter taken by cult

BAGUIO CITY – The woman who fought to reclaim her teenage daughter from a cult in Davao City has been sued for coercion by her daughter.

Erlinda Rillon, 62, was finally allowed to meet her daughter, Arlene, 21, in July 2007 after years of fighting evangelist Apollo Quiboloy, who took custody of Arlene when she was just 17 years old.

The meeting was coordinated by Davao City’s social welfare office because of Rillon’s claim that Quiboloy’s ministry had been preventing her from visiting her daughter.

Quiboloy founded the Church of Jesus Christ the Name Above Every Name, which used to count Arlene’s parents as members.

But instead of reaching some measure of closure, the encounter had compelled Arlene to sue her mother and three government social workers for supposedly trying to force her to return to Baguio.

Davao City Prosecutor Edwin Diez informed Rillon in a Jan. 7 letter that Arlene had accused her of trying to detain and handcuff her, aided by Davao social workers Veronica Pepito, Joy Legaspino and Dennis Villalobos.

The complaint was filed by lawyer Romulo Manapsal, regional director of the National Bureau of Investigation, who cited Arlene’s testimony that Rillon and the social workers were there to convince her to leave Quiboloy’s ministry.

Rillon said an argument took place, but she blamed an Army major belonging to Task Force Davao for starting a scuffle.

In a July 23, 2007 complaint she filed at the Davao City prosecutor’s office, Rillon said the officer and some soldiers acted like thugs when they took Arlene away from the social welfare office in the middle of their meeting.

Rillon has elevated her complaint against the officer before the Office of the Ombudsman.

Her feud with the cult became public when she accused Quiboloy of detaining Arlene before the Baguio city council in 2005.

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