GAWAD Kalinga (GK) founder Tony Meloto was arrested on Friday night on sex trafficking charges based on complaints first filed last year by two male students who said they were subjected to repeated sexual abuse and unwanted physical advances.
Meloto has denied the accusations.
In a statement late on Friday, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said an operation was conducted in Angat, Bulacan, to arrest Meloto, who was informed of his rights.
Meloto was served a warrant of arrest for two counts of qualified trafficking from a regional trial court in Malolos City. No bail was recommended.
PNP chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. acknowledged the operating units for their “orderly and lawful implementation of the operation.”
“We will not allow any form of human trafficking to go unchecked because lives, human dignity and people’s futures are at stake. We will continue to focus on cases like this while also ensuring that every operation of the Philippine National Police is carried out with respect for human rights and in accordance with the law,” he said in Filipino.
In September 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered the filing of criminal charges against Meloto for two counts of trafficking in persons after two boys from Gawad Kalinga’s School for Experiential and Entrepreneurial Development (SEED) program accused him of sexual misconduct.
Gawad Kalinga is a nongovernment organization that seeks to reduce poverty, building master-planned communities to relocate slum residents and disaster victims. Rather than just providing free housing, the organization requires residents to contribute sweat equity and runs programs centered on community farming, basic education and local health clinics.
As of Saturday, the organization has yet to issue a statement on Meloto’s arrest.
According to archived pages of the grassroots organization’s website, Meloto was born on Jan. 17, 1950, in Bacolod City to a middle-class family.
“At a young age, he was already exposed to the squalid living conditions of the poor, his home being near a shoreline squatter community where poverty was already very pronounced,” the website said.
Meloto was an American Field Service scholar and also took senior high school in De Anza High School in Richmond, California.
He qualified as a full academic scholar of the Ateneo de Manila University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics in 1971.
“His college years were dedicated to preparing for a career that would take him and his family out of the poverty of his past,” Gawad Kalinga’s profile of Meloto read.
Meloto was offered a position as the purchasing manager of Procter & Gamble and also built his own life being an entrepreneur, it added.
“It was in 1985 that Tito Tony’s life took a different path that eventually led him to the inspiring work of Gawad Kalinga. He became an active member of Couples for Christ (CFC) and quickly rose in leadership, becoming instrumental in the setting up of the CFC Family Ministries in 1993. This expanded the reach of the mission beyond couples, to include children, youth and young professionals,” Meloto’s profile read.
Meloto was CFC’s country coordinator for Australia when he felt the call “to start the work with the poor through a youth development program for gang members and juvenile delinquents in Bagong Silang, Caloocan City.”
“Since it began in 1995, the program has now evolved to become Gawad Kalinga, a global movement that builds integrated, holistic and sustainable communities in slum areas,” the organization said.
In 2006, Meloto was a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Community Leadership.
In 2015, Meloto drew fire after saying at the Center for Philippine Studies at the University of Hawaii-Manoa that the “greatest asset of the Philippines is our beautiful women” and urged them to produce “cappuccino” children with white husbands.
“First time to be called ‘sexist and elitist’ after 20 years of honoring our women and caring for the poor, after hundreds of speeches here and abroad,” Meloto said on his Twitter account at the time.
“This is the first I’ve been called such, and it hurts, because I’ve always worked for the protection of women and children from domestic abuse and societal discrimination. In fact, GK has been strict in the discipline of men through values formation and GK village rules that do not tolerate habitual drunkenness, drugs, gambling, and domestic and community violence. Our women are not the problem — Filipino women are our biggest blessing because of their caring and nurturing nature. But if men are the problem — our criminals are mostly men — we should not give up on them but instead help reform them and make them part of the solution,” he said in an official statement issued by the organization.
Then in 2025, the DOJ indicted Meloto for two counts of trafficking in persons after two boys from Gawad Kalinga’s SEED complained against him.
The boys said that in several incidents dating from 2017, Meloto would regularly abuse them sexually “against their will.”
“The pattern of respondent Meloto’s behavior demonstrates not isolated acts of sexual misconduct or lascivious acts but a structured system of sexual exploitation, facilitated by organizational hierarchy and deception, he being the founder of Gawad Kalinga and the leader of SEED,” the DOJ said in its resolution filed against Meloto.
Meloto’s name has since been removed from Gawad Kalinga’s website and also the Ramon Magsaysay Awards, following his indictment.
