A Pasig court has cleared the way for the temporary release of Franco Mabanta and four others implicated in an alleged extortion plot targeting former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Pasig Regional Trial Court Branch 167 issued a release order for the Peanut Gallery Media Network founder after he posted bail of P120,000 on Saturday. His four co-accused posted the same amount individually, according to ABS-CBN News.
The five were taken into custody earlier in the week following a National Bureau of Investigation entrapment operation. Mabanta, 43, and associates allegedly demanded P300 million from Romualdez — payable in tranches of P75 million — in exchange for suppressing a video that purportedly showed the former House speaker as a central figure in a multibillion-peso flood control corruption scandal.
The NBI said the sting unfolded after Romualdez filed a formal complaint against the group. Undercover agents posing as the former speaker’s representatives met Mabanta at The Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati, where he allegedly pressed his demand before directing them to deliver the marked cash to contacts at Valle Verde Country Club in Pasig City. All five men were arrested there after the money changed hands.
Mabanta and his co-accused face charges of robbery by extortion and alleged violations of the Cybercrime Prevention Act. Charges were filed following inquest proceedings at the NBI detention facility inside the New Bilibid Prison compound in Muntinlupa.
PGMN, for its part, has rejected the accusations outright, characterizing the arrest as a deliberate “setup.”
