A Quezon City prosecutor has dismissed a cyber libel complaint filed by Bohol Rep. Maria Vanessa C. Aumentado against a former political ally who accused her on Facebook of demanding kickbacks from contractors, accepting bribes tied to a vice presidential impeachment vote and accumulating unexplained wealth while in office.

Assistant City Prosecutor Rens Gener P. Sese, LLM, issued the dismissal, finding no prima facie evidence sufficient to indict Emmanuel Bongcac Ramasola, also known as “Willy Ramasola,” for violation of Section 4(c)(4) of Republic Act No. 10175, the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, in relation to Articles 353 and 355 of the Revised Penal Code on libel. The resolution was approved by Senior Assistant City Prosecutor Ginalyn Y. Ramos and City Prosecutor Vimar M. Barcellano.

Sese found that Aumentado, as a re-elected sitting congresswoman, is subject to the actual malice standard under Philippine jurisprudence — a heightened evidentiary threshold requiring proof that Ramasola posted the statements knowing them to be false or with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity.

The prosecutor concluded that neither element was sufficiently established by the evidence on record.

THE POSTS

The complaint stemmed from three Facebook posts Ramasola published on his public account, “Willy Ramasola,” between July 24 and July 31, 2025.

In the first post, on July 24, 2025, Ramasola wrote in Cebuano: “Si Pareng Bacon modawat ra kuno to kung pila man ang itunol sa contractor. Pero kani si Mareng Bacon mo demand kuno ug 20-30% oy.” Translated: “Pareng Bacon only accepts whatever amount is handed by the contractor. But this Mareng Bacon allegedly demands 20-30%. How unfortunate.”

Aumentado said the nickname “Mareng Bacon” referred to her after Ramasola posted a video the previous day of her mispronouncing the word “beacon” as “bacon” in a speech.

In the second post, on July 25, 2025, Ramasola listed what he described as luxury purchases — a condominium, a Land Cruiser, a Super Grandia, designer bags, shoes, gowns and high-end jewelry — and wrote that with such a lifestyle, it would be hard to refuse P150 million pesos.

The post accompanied a photograph showing the signatures of House members on the impeachment complaint against then-Vice President Sara Duterte, with Aumentado’s name and signature highlighted.

In the third post, on July 31, 2025, Ramasola wrote about what he called worsening corruption in Bohol’s tourism sector, alleging the closure of whale shark watching sites in the towns of Lila, Albur and Dauis was arranged to favor a Korean operator who had paid a “SOP” — local parlance for a payoff — to the provincial administration.

He ended the post by citing unnamed off-the-record sources claiming “a significant rise in unexplained wealth accumulated by the Aumentado couple” and stating, “We shall probe deeper into this.”

Philippine National Police investigator PCpl. Maria Catherine M. Nalla confirmed in an affidavit of preservation that Ramasola’s Facebook account carried the posts under public privacy settings, making them accessible to all users.

WHY THE CASE WAS DISMISSED

On the question of actual malice, Sese rejected Aumentado’s central theory that Ramasola’s posts were driven by bitterness over his poor showing in the May 2025 elections, where he placed seventh among eight candidates for provincial board member of the First District of Bohol under the Abante Bohol slate — the same political party led by Aumentado’s husband, Bohol Governor Erico Aristotle C. Aumentado.

“Aumentado failed to demonstrate how Ramasola developed animosity toward Aumentado and her husband when he placed seventh among the eight candidates for the provincial board of the First District of Bohol,” Sese wrote. “Aumentado in her complaint merely concluded that he was bitter about the loss, but failed to establish such a claim with concrete evidence.”

The prosecutor also noted that Ramasola and the Aumentados had not competed against each other, and that the leap from electoral defeat to personal hostility directed at former allies required concrete, not circumstantial, proof.

On the question of whether the posts were defamatory, Sese found that the three witnesses presented by Aumentado — Miralyn L. Munil, Marque S. Butcon and Beb Suzette Tan Lim-Calamba — while confirming they had viewed the posts and identified Aumentado as the subject, did not testify that the posts induced them or anyone else to actually doubt Aumentado’s honesty, virtue or reputation.

Witness Butcon, in fact, described Aumentado as “a committed public servant” and called Ramasola’s accusations “highly incredible.” Witness Lim-Calamba similarly declared the accusations false and baseless.

“Based on the competent evidence presented, the honor and reputation of Representative Aumentado remained untainted,” Sese wrote.

The prosecutor also declined to treat Ramasola’s lack of verified sources as automatic proof of reckless disregard, noting that under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Disini v. Secretary of Justice, gross or even extreme negligence is not sufficient to establish actual malice.

Sese said Aumentado was required to show that Ramasola actually knew his statements were false at the time of posting — a showing the evidence failed to make.

RAMASOLA’S POSITION

In his counter-affidavit, Ramasola denied that the posts were libelous and described himself as a long-standing anti-corruption advocate who had filed graft charges against several public officials.

He said Governor Aris had appointed him to the board of the Office of Government Accountability and Review in 2022 and that his social media posts were a continuation of that advocacy — not retaliation for electoral defeat.

Ramasola argued that the moniker “Mareng Bacon” in the July 24 post was a generic social media nickname for any politician who had mispronounced the word and could not be conclusively attributed to Aumentado.

He contended that the impeachment photograph used in the July 25 post bore multiple signatories and that listing luxury possessions alongside a large monetary figure did not constitute a criminal accusation.

On the July 31 post, he maintained that his use of the phrases “sources say” and “we shall probe deeper” reflected responsible handling of unverified information, not reckless disregard, and that his post was directed primarily at Governor Aris rather than at Aumentado herself.

Ramasola also raised authentication objections, arguing the screenshots attached to the complaint were not properly authenticated, and that no conclusive proof established he was the one personally operating the Facebook account at the time the posts were made.

THE CHALLENGE

Aumentado, through counsel Atty. Lord R. Marapao, filed a motion for reconsideration on June 19, 2026, after receiving the March 2 resolution on June 17. The filing fell within the 15-day reglementary period under DOJ Department Circular No. 15, series of 2024.

The motion argued that Sese applied a standard of proof appropriate for conviction rather than for the preliminary investigation stage, where the only question is whether prima facie evidence exists to establish a reasonable certainty of conviction. The motion contended that questions of motive, intent, state of mind and the existence of hostility between the parties are inherently factual matters best resolved at trial with the full benefit of testimonial and documentary evidence — not at the dismissal stage.

On actual malice, Marapao cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sazon v. Court of Appeals, which recognized that a grudge, rivalry or ill-feeling between the parties is admissible as extrinsic evidence of malice in fact. The motion argued that Ramasola’s abrupt pivot from active campaign supporter to relentless public critic — within weeks of the elections — constituted precisely such circumstantial evidence.

On defamatory character, the motion argued that no ordinary reader could interpret the July 24 post other than as an accusation that Aumentado demanded illegal kickbacks from contractors; the July 25 post other than as an insinuation that she accepted 150 million pesos in exchange for a legislative act; or the July 31 post other than as an allegation of illicit enrichment in public office, given the legal weight the term “unexplained wealth” carries in Philippine law.

Marapao also challenged the prosecutor’s favorable treatment of Ramasola’s “sources say” and “probe deeper” language, arguing that publishing grave accusations of corruption without prior verification — and vowing to investigate only afterward — is itself evidence of reckless disregard, not journalistic responsibility.