FIRST SAY:
James Rosten said in Quora:
“Reverend” is an honorific assigned by various religious authorities who alone have the right to determine who is qualified to use it. Some denominations (and quasi-denominations” shun such titles. Plymouth Brethren have no clergy, but they do recognize some elders. Many Evangelicals grant the title to ordained and/or licensed ministers. To acquire ordination or license often a certain educational accomplishment, and assessment of character is required. These groups (and all Christian groups) take the advice of a Paul seriously; “Do not ordain (by the laying on of hands) prematurely, for if you grant recognition you stand responsible for his wrongdoing”. (Rosten’s paraphrase).
Of course you can always apply to a paper mill and get ordained with no qualifications at all. That is why it Isco important to know who granted someone their recognition. Then you can appraise its value. Since a certain amount of indoctrination is involved in all legitimate ordinations, you also get a sense of what they represent.
Personally, I am not impressed by titles. I am more moved by character and ability.
Also in the same platform, Adam Brower said:
In the United States, there are and can be no official qualifications required by law to assume the title “Reverend”. Anyone who wants to can adopt the title; the same is true for its many equivalents, e.g. Pastor, Minister, Parson, Priest, et al.
Because our government (both federal and state) is forbidden to regulate the practice of religion, there can never be any such “official” title.
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From 2010 to 2019, the KAPA International Community Ministry in Mindanao enjoyed business and financial growth due to the discovery by one Pastor Joel Apolinario of a novel money-making scheme. Apolinario mixed pretensions of religious piety with the Ponzi enrichment scheme, also known as the pyramid scam.
In the guise of soliciting religious "donations" from members of his Kabus Padatuon (KAPA) International Ministry, Apolinario had established a business conglomerate just in a matter of months, with interest in agriculture, fisheries, food production, trading, clothes, educational institutions, hospitals, and the like.
Aside from using Jesus Christ, the Bible, and the idea of an afterlife in heaven to convince his members to the fold, Apolinario has an even better--though worldly--incentive. The business-minded pastor promises to give 30 percent interest on donations masquerading as investment to his church, the KAPA International Ministry. With members numbering some 5 million, many of them tribal Filipinos in Mindanao, KAPA has become a huge business conglomerate in the South.
Like all Ponzi schemes, the KAPA was able to pay its early investors, and so success beckoned. Greed and the desire to get rich quickly and still reserve a special seat in heaven with God, became the primary reasons for ordinary residents in the South to join KAPA.
These are more compelling reasons than the desire to be close to god, or be saved in the afterlife, if there is any, or to find solace in the divine. Hundreds of victims in this financial fraud filed cases against Apolinario and his gang.
Exactly one year after the KAPA bubble burst and after six months of surveillance, Apolinario was cornered by the Caraga police in an isolated island in Sitio Dahican, Barangay Handamayan of Lingig town, Surigao del Sur. In this encounter in July, 2019, the police served him a warrant of arrest, his 21 loyal bodyguards resisted, opened fire, and two of the bodyguards were killed.
Apolinario faced criminal charges for the illegal operation of KAPA and for deceiving the people, especially in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tribal groups, small teachers, factory workers, policemen, soldiers, OFWs, farmers, students, etc. in General Santos City, Bohol, Cebu, Davao, Bukidnon, Tagum and other cities who fell prey to KAPA had their revenge in the courts, but like other victims of Ponzi schemes, their lifetime savings are gone with the wind.
With the downfall of Apolinario’s KAPA and the domino effect slide it has on the business conglomerate that he built, we thought that this is the end of the KAPA story.
Religious society foundation
Until our friend Undersecretary Paul Gutierrez, executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) sent a press release praising the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for issuing a cease and desist order (CDO) against a purported “religious society foundation” in Mindanao whose founder has been accused of masterminding the murder of a broadcast journalist in Kidapawan in 2019.
Undersecretary Paul Gutierrez, said they recently received a copy of the CDO dated May 22, 2024 against the Humanitarian and Spiritual Mission Apostulates of Davao and Asia, Inc. (HASMADAI) for selling securities without approval from the commission and in violation of its own articles of incorporation (AOI) that it submitted to the SEC.
Also covered by the CDO are the HASMADAI Foundation, Inc. and the Humanitarian Institute of Technology Corp. Their registration, however, are yet to be approved by the SEC.
The CDO was signed by the Commission en banc, headed by Chairman Emilio Aquino.
Gutierrez said the CDO was addressed to the 12 officials and incorporators of HASMADAI, including Dante “Bobong” Encarnacion Tabusares, who also used the name Ralph Jimmy Calaor Gayatin. Tabusares identified himself as the “Bishop/President/Trustee” of HASMADAI on papers filed with the SEC.
Tabusares has been tagged as the “mastermind” in the murder of Brigada FM Kidapawan broadcaster, Eduardo “Ed” Dizon that happened on July 10, 2019.
Dizon was allegedly killed on the order of Tabusares over his stringent criticism of the KAPA Community Ministry of which Tabusares admitted to being its “media coordinator and promoter” for North Cotabato.
The SEC closed KAPA down in early 2019 for being an investment scam and Dizon was killed just weeks after its closure.
The alleged gunman in the killing of Dizon, Junell Jane Andagkit Poten, aka, Junell Gerozaga, was finally collared in Makilala, Cotabato, last May 2, 2024, by members of a special investigation team formed by the government on the instigation of the PTFoMS.
In the present case, the SEC issued the CDO against HASMADAI after establishing it was another “fraud to the public” based on the thorough investigation conducted by the SEC’s Enforcement and Investor Protection Department (EIPD).
“The correlation between the killing of Ed Dizon and the present activities of Mr. Tabusares is becoming clear. We commend the SEC for its diligence in uncovering this latest modus of Mr. Tabusares aimed at taking the hard-earned money of our poor countrymen, especially in Mindanao,” Gutierrez said.
“In a way too, this has become a case of ‘hitting two birds with one stone’ because we have established other potential violations of the law by Mr. Tabusares and his confederates by digging deeper into the case of Ed Dizon,” he added.
The SEC investigation, Gutierrez said, revealed the same pattern being used by HASMADAI from that of KAPA Ministry aimed at enticing the public to put their hard-earned money ranging from P5,000 to P20,000 with a promised of huge return within six months.
Due to Tabusares’ blandishment, the EIPD said HASMADAI is already entrenched in the “various municipalities and cities” in the Caraga region, especially in the provinces of Agusan del Sur and Agusan del Norte.
HASMADAI chapters can also be found in North Cotabato, the Davao region, especially in Davao del Sur, in the Visayas and even in Luzon, according to its social media posts.
To prevent further harm to the public, the SEC also directed all the “representatives, salesmen, agents, brokers, dealers, promoters, recruiters, uplines, influencers, endorsers, abettors, and enablers and any, and all persons, conduit entities, subsidiaries, and affiliates” who are claiming and acting for and on behalf HASMADAI, to comply with the CDO.
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