Peanut Gallery Media Network (PGMN) has denounced a fabricated screenshot that appears to show its founder Franco Mabanta and anchor CJ Hirro privately discussing the rising death toll from the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Mindanao on June 8 in cynical, partisan terms, drawing a defiant public reply from the satire group it implicated.
The doctored image, styled as a leaked “PGMN Admins” group chat, depicts Mabanta and Hirro reacting to news of 32 deaths from the quake by recasting the toll as votes lost by Vice President Sara Duterte — “-32 votes kay VP Sara, sayang” — a fabrication designed to portray the network as reducing disaster deaths to a political tally. In a post that drew more than 1,500 reactions, PGMN said the WhatsApp profile photos shown are not those of Mabanta or Hirro and that no “PGMN admins” group chat exists or has ever existed. The network said the two are filing criminal and civil charges over the post and described a coordinated surge in fake screenshots, fake screen recordings, and AI-generated photos and videos circulating since the National Bureau of Investigation seized Mabanta’s phone.
The fabricated screenshot exploits a real event. A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off Sarangani province on the morning of June 8, with Phivolcs recording the tremor at 7:37 a.m. about 32 kilometers south-southwest of Maasim, Sarangani. The disaster has been one of the deadliest to hit the southern Philippines in decades, with the death toll climbing past 30 in the days after the quake as rescue operations continued in General Santos City and surrounding areas. The “32 dead” headline reproduced in the fake chat tracks an actual casualty figure reported at one stage of the unfolding coverage, lending the forgery a veneer of plausibility.
The screenshot attributes its origin to “House of Representa-thieves: Butasang Pambulsa,” a long-running political satire and meme group on Facebook with a membership in the six figures. Responding to PGMN’s threat of legal action, the group issued a statement asserting that it has never presented itself as a government institution, news organization, or source of factual reporting, and that it exists as a platform for parody, satire, and political commentary. It argued that satire is distinct from news reporting because its purpose is to comment rather than deceive, and warned that equating satire with malicious disinformation risks chilling legitimate criticism of public figures. The statement closed with the line, “We do not serve politicians. We do not protect personalities. We do not pick sides.”
The dispute unfolds against the backdrop of a criminal case already facing the network’s leadership. Mabanta and four associates were arrested by the NBI in an entrapment operation in early May over an alleged attempt to extort hundreds of millions of pesos from former House Speaker Martin Romualdez in exchange for withholding video content linking him to flood-control corruption. The NBI separately subpoenaed Hirro as a person of interest. Mabanta has denied the allegations, characterizing the case as “a setup,” and his counsel has said they expect it to be dismissed.
