Maybe I should have mentioned that I went through the whole #! bang - that is
- remove the database files as root
# rm -f /var/lib/pacman/sync/* - remove pacman pgp folder
# rm -rf /etc/pacman.d/gnupg - remove package cache
# pacman -Scc - init key database
# pacman-key --init - populate database
# pacman-key --populate manjaro archlinux - refresh pacman keys
# pacman-key --refresh
And for the sport of if - at this very moment I went to update my pine phone and lucky me - I just got the same issue on my pine phone.
The old bug entry I mentioned - the one on Arch bugtracker - closed as not a bug - and the old topic from Arch forum - they are here for reference