The consequences of guilt will soon rain down on outgoing Cagayan Province Governor Manuel Noveno Mamba as a Manila court finds the former guilty beyond reasonable doubt of cyber libel for a series of defamatory and malicious public statements made in an online program known as ‘Politiskoop’ against former Senate President and now Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile.
The conviction carries with it a penalty of up to six (6) years imprisonment and a fine totaling to P300,000 for exemplary and moral damages. In a 44-page decision promulgated on April 11, 2025, and released last week, the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 24 found Governor Mamba guilty of violating RA 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
In his complaint, Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile alleged that in April 2023, Governor Mamba, among other similar declarations and pronouncements, uttered malicious statements detrimental to the honorable reputation of the aggrieved party. As a result of these statements that were neither remotely factual nor sufficiently necessary, the court has ruled in favor of Juan Ponce Enrile who has endured a dark trail of mental anguish, serious anxiety, social humiliation, and damaged reputation.
In Mamba’s dark universe, he believed that his description of Juan Ponce Enrile as a ‘plunderer’ is legally justified because there is actually a pending case against him before the Sandiganbayan involving the PDAF scam and the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago also called Mamba a ‘plunderer.’
But the court in its ruling stated that the pending case for plunder against Enrile and Senator Santiago’s act of calling him a plunderer did not establish a fact that he is indeed a plunderer. The statements were made in response to questions by the hosts of the online program Ina Andolong and Michael Fajatin regarding a Facebook post by JPE on the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites in the country.
Mamba and JPE have a long-standing quarrel over the new EDCA sites in Cagayan particularly in Camilo Osias Naval Base in Santa Ana, Cagayan and Lal-lo Airport in Lal-lo Cagayan. The former has vehemently opposed the installation of these additional EDCA military sites in the same province. In addition, Mamba’s expression of opinion based thereon that private complainant Enrile is a ‘plunderer’ is not based on established facts.
The same holds true for his expression of opinion based on news reports merely discussing Senator Santiago’s statements which obviously are not established as facts. Similarly, the other news reports only mention the pending plunder case.
All in all, the role of rancor in Mamba’s grand crime of cyber libel and his propensity to use negatively-loaded words in his moral vocabulary to attack his political adversary has sealed not only his guilt, but even more to his ruin as a self-styled savior of Cagayan Province.
He is not and he will never be one.
INC endorsement no big deal
I am told that candidates not endorsed by the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) should campaign against Rodante Marcoleta and Duterte’s political allies running for public office.
The INC bloc voting is not a spiritual wisdom of any sort, but a way for the “church” to get what they want or for some sort of revenge mechanism when things do not go in their favor.
How else can anyone explain the Rose Nono Lin – INC endorsement? She was an incorporator of the controversial Pharmally and her husband is also an alleged personality in the POGO / drug trade with PRRD BFF Michael Yang. So how is this even spiritual?
-o0o-
Keep tuning in to my weekly program Leslie Bocobo Live! Over Radyo Pilipinas 738 Khz AM. Aired every Thursday 1:00-2:00PM and livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube. Also watch out for the coming revival of the 365 Club.
-o0o-
Random Memorandum: Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle is a Cardinal-Bishop within the Vatican, the highest rank a cardinal may hold. He was elevated to this rank by Pope Francis in 2020. While a Cardinal-Bishop is responsible for a church in a suburb of Rome, Tagle’s appointment was unusual as he was not assigned to a specific suburbicarian see.
-o0o-
Factoid: The cardinal electors continue to vote until a two-third-plus-one majority is achieved. The shortest conclave on record was in 1503, when it took the cardinals only 10 hours to choose Pope Pius III as the new pontiff. The longest conclave on record took nearly 3 years.
(Leslie Bocobo is a former Special Assistant to the Secretary at the Office of the Press Secretary, Malacañang, and a former Public Affairs Director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources)
Email: sleeplessinmyshuttle@yahoo.com
