The tunnel inside the house of cult leader Casiano Apduhan is where NBI agents found the body of a teenage boy buried in a sealed niche.
The house of the Balamban cult leader known as “Dios Amahan” did not only have a 50-foot-deep tunnel where a teenage boy was buried.
The “villa” was “designed to be a prison house” with only one entrance, according to investigators who raided the bungalow on Wednesday.
The entrance had steel grills that were padlocked, while other doors and windows were “heavily barricaded”.
“There is no way for a member of the household to escape,” said National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) supervising agent Rey Villordon in two complaints filed yesterday before the Cebu Provincial Prosecutors Office.
Charges of serious illegal detention and illegal possesion of firearms were filed against Casiano “Tatay Loloy” Apduhan, whose followers believe he can heal the sick and raise the dead to life.
NBI agents rescued a 33-year-old woman whose family reported her as missing for five years.
She was found “locked up in the house” in a room on the ground floor with the door grill padlocked.
But Emma Bocabal Nepomuceno may surprise investigators later if she says she lived in the villa of her own consent as a follower of “Tatay Loloy”.
Amid allegations of ex-cult followers that Apduhan made sexual advances on female followers, Emma looked subdued and spoke little after her arrest.
She admonished her mother Alicia when the two were reunited immediately after the NBI’s early morning raid.
The mother, who was shocked to find her daughter just in Balamban, their hometown, instead of abroad, expressed harsh words about the cult leader.
“Ayaw ma, kay sagrado na si Tatay Loloy. (Don’t rebuke Tatay Loloy because he’s holy),” Emma responded.
Emma was taken to an undisclosed government center for medical and psycho-social evaluation intervention.
The NBI said they would file additional charges for murder and human trafficking against Apduhan today.
Emma Bocabal Nepomuceno (in white shirt), who was “missing” for 5 years, is reunited with her sister Gina.
BOY AS OFFERING
It’s not clear yet why 14-year-old Angelo Repuela died.
His body was found wrapped in a blanket and buried in a niche in the 50-foot deep tunnel.
The father, Eleuterio Repuella, was a follower who left the group last year, dislusioned that “Diyos Amahan” was an “imposter”.
The joint affidavit of arrest of the NBI and the Provincial Women’s Commission said the cause of death was never known to the parents.
“It was just known to them that their son was offered for sacrifice to the ‘bulawan’ and by that was assured by a promise with their ‘Diyos Amahan’ (God Almighty) the coming of his son to life in the year 2013 which never came,” the affidavits said.
The parents later realized that the man they revered as God “is an imposter” , and escaped from his control, said the affidavit.
The boy’s remains were claimed by his parents in Naga City.
Repuela’s father Eleuterio told GMA-7 that he didn’t know what his son died of.
“Wala may sakit ang akong anak. Nahibong na lang ko sa dihang nakita nako ang akong anak nga nagkadugo na ang li-og niatdong 2012. Matud pa ni Tatay Loloy, padugo kuno to aron makakuha og bulawan. (My son didn’t have any illness. I was just surprised when I saw blood coming out from my son’s neck. Tatay Loloy told me the blood was intended to produce gold),” Eleuterio said.
A 19-year-old former cult member Ritchie Fajardo also issued an affidavit about the boy’s burial.
He said he worked in the villa of Tatay Loloy since he was ten years old, and knew the boy’s father Elueterio as they both worked in the villa.
He said the boy Angelo died middle of 2012 but didn’t know the circumstances. He recalled that he and Eleuterio were called to the villa on orders of Tatay Loloy.
There, Eleuerio and another cult member Victor Fajardo brought the dead body of Angelo which was transported on a multicab from their house in Laray to the villa.
The body was lifted from the multicab and brought to the underground tunnel on instruction of Tatay Loloay. It was laid in a green bedsheet and wrapped in a brown blanket with a pillow placed under the head. The corpse was placed in a small cave in the tunnel and its entrance was sealed with cement.