Hours after being taken into custody by the National Bureau of Investigation, Peanut Gallery Media Network founder Franco Mabanta issued a defiant denial Wednesday, declaring his arrest a political act of suppression and asserting that a 90-minute video documenting what he describes as large-scale corruption by former House Speaker Martin Romualdez is ready for release.
“We are innocent. This was a setup,” Mabanta said in a statement published online. “There was no extortion. There were ZERO threats from us. That’s all bullshit.”
Mabanta and four others — identified as Ericson James Pacaba, John Alexander Vasquez Gomez, and Franco Jose Gallardo, along with an anchor named “CJ Hirro” — were arrested Tuesday night following an entrapment operation at The Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City. NBI Director Melvin Matibag confirmed the arrests on Wednesday. The suspects are now in the custody of the bureau’s Organized and Transnational Crime Division.
According to the NBI, the case was initiated by a complaint from Romualdez, who alleged that Mabanta threatened to release videos linking him to corruption in flood control projects unless he paid ₱350 million — later reduced to ₱300 million, to be delivered in four tranches of ₱75 million each. Romualdez chose to cooperate with authorities instead, leading to the entrapment in which the first installment was reportedly handed over using marked money.
Mabanta flatly rejected that account. In his statement, he said PGMN had spent five months conducting research into what he called Romualdez’s “breathtaking national corruption” while he served as Speaker, and that the resulting documentary had already been fully edited when the arrest came. “The episode was filmed several weeks ago. It has been fully edited — it is 90 minutes-long, packed with hard evidence, and ready for release,” he wrote. “That is why this is happening.”
He also claimed that in the days before the arrest, he and his team had received multiple private warnings from well-placed sources that they faced a risk of physical harm, including possible assassination. In anticipation of that threat, Mabanta said he issued standing instructions to his legal team and allies: if anything happened to him or anyone at PGMN, the exposé was to be published immediately across all major social media platforms.
Romualdez, who now serves as Leyte’s first district representative following his tenure as Speaker, is currently the subject of Ombudsman scrutiny over alleged irregularities in flood control projects. Mabanta framed that context as the reason for what he described as the lawmaker’s urgency in acting against him. “Romualdez did this to silence us — why? Because the timing of the release of our exposé would leave him in a desperate situation, particularly with his vast current troubles with the Ombudsman hanging over his head,” he wrote.
The NBI, for its part, maintained that the operation was not directed at Mabanta’s views or editorial work. “Freedom of expression is protected by law, but it must never be used as a shield for extortion, intimidation, or criminal exploitation,” Director Matibag said during a press briefing. He added that the investigation would extend beyond those already in custody, with digital evidence, social media accounts, and devices connected to PGMN now under examination.
Matibag said charges of robbery by extortion and violations of the Cybercrime Prevention Act are being prepared for filing. Full details of the case, he said, would be disclosed after Mabanta is submitted to inquest proceedings — a legal process used to determine probable cause following a warrantless arrest.
Mabanta, who once served as the social media strategist of then-Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. before the latter’s 2022 presidential victory, founded PGMN in 2024. The platform, which produces political commentary distributed primarily through YouTube and Facebook, has accumulated hundreds of thousands of followers.
In his statement, Mabanta addressed Romualdez directly: “Dear Martin, you know what you did to the country. We know what you did to the country. Soon, hopefully, everyone will too.”
