In a historic first, an impeached official faces both his accusers and his jurors on a day that could make or break the case against him.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona takes the witness stand today to testify on the charges against him, particularly that he was committed culpable violations of the Constitution and betrayal of the public trust for failing to make public his statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth, and for allegedly showing partiality towards former President Gloria Arroyo in several cases decided on by the high tribunal.

Addressing his colleagues at the start of today’s impeachment proceedings, presiding officer Juan Ponce Enrile reminded the senator-judges that they were not conducting an “inquiry in aid of legislation.”

Rather, Enrile said that the senators were here to be “hearers of facts.”

“In the course of the trial and judgement, we will interpret the law according to our best (rights). We are receivers of evidence from the prosecution and defense. We are not an inquisitorial court,” Enrile reminded the senators.

Corona arrived at the senate building a few minutes early, and was ushered into a waiting room. Corona had come from the Supreme Court offices in Padre Faura, where supporters and court employees staged a rally to support him.

Defense counsel Serafin Cuevas, in his opening remarks, expressed concerns over the possibility that some may try to influence the senator-judges. In addition, Cuevas said he was concerned that his client would be judged, not just by the impeachment court, but by the public in general as well.

Cuevas stressed the need for “political neutrality,” wherein senator-judges would exercise their “public duty” regardless of “their party affiliation.”

Enrile for his part assured Cuevas that the senator-judges would “judge this case on the basis of the evidence presented to us by the prosecution and the defense.”

“No one of us here, including this chair, will attempt to influence the minds of any of the 23 souls acting as judges in this impeachment trial,” Enrile said.

Addressing the public watching from the gallery, Enrile said the senate will strictly implement the prohibition against “any expression of approval or disapproval.”

“No clapping or shouting or unnecessary commotions,” Enrile said.

Corona arrives at the senate building. Video by NBN4

MOST JOURNALISTS would probably think it virtually impossible to investigate prominent political personalities in societies with severe restrictions on the press. But as the case of the investigation of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai shows, the digital revolution has opened new doors to international investigative journalists.

In a post in her international investigative journalism blog Watchdog-Watcher, Sheila Coronal, founding executive director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) showed how Hong Kong and United States journalists used digital tools to break down borders and retrace the web of dealings conducted by Bo Xilai that enabled him to amass a tidy fortune.

Bo Xilai was recently purged from the Chinese Communist Party after an international furor over charges of murder and corruption. Bo was accused of involvement in the murder of UK businessman Neil Heywood that “precipitated the biggest political scandal in China in years,” Coronel noted.

In her two-part blog entry, Coronel showed a feisty Hong Kong-based Next Magazine led the way and broke the ground by sniffing Bo’s corruption trail. Next Magazine’s lead was followed by bigger media groups, with agencies  such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Bloomberg “trolling public records databases around the world to piece together information about the couple, information that in the pre-digital days would have been difficult to find.”

“This is the new era of investigative reporting. Governments and companies are publishing increasing amounts of information online – yes, even in China. And the ability to find and mine that information is now an essential part of any journalist’s toolkit,” Coronel said in her blog.

The convoluted trail brought journalists to many websites, from courts to lawyers’ associations to the sites of publicly-listed companies to lay bare everything from personal and official photos to annual reports.

Read Sheila Coronel’s blog entries on Bo Xilai, his fall from grace, and the web of corruption that now hounds him here for part 1, and part 2 here.

SENATOR-JUDGE MIRIAM DEFENSOR SANTIAGO said Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales failed to follow procedures she said were enumerated in the Anti Money Laundering law when she sought information relating to the alleged bank accounts of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Santiago was the first senator-judge to pose questions to Morales after she was examined and cross-examined by defense and prosecution panels.

Santiago pointed out that Morales had based her initial findings primarily on the data submitted to her by the Anti Money Laundering Council or AMLA, a financial intelligence unit headed by the Bangko Sentral.

However Santiago said the law that created the AMLC also set a series of procedures for anyone to access data from the AMLC. In this particular case, Santiago said the right thing for the Ombudsman to do was to have gotten a court order first before the AMLC could release data to her. To this, Morales said that the Ombudsman was empowered to seek assistance from any government agency in pursuit of an investigation.

Santiago asked if this meant that the Ombudsman can in effect ask the AMLC for any data on any person it wants to investigate, even members of the Philippine Senate. To this, Morales said it would depend on the case involved.

“You mean if you find that the filing of a complaint is warranted, you can just act on your own? You can just go to AMLC and get our records without a court order?” Santiago said.

Again, Morales said it would depend on the case involved.

To this Santiago shot back with “You are fudging your answer!”

When Morales replied that she was not, Santiago said that Morales was arguing with a senator-judge.

“I am sorry, mea culpa.” Morales replied immediately.

“I accept your apology,” an irritated Santiago said.

“Noted,” Morales replied.

LEAD DEFENSE COUNSEL Serafin Cuevas tangled with his own witness in the person of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, grilling her in an effort to impeach her and weaken her credibility.

On the second day of her testimony before the senate impeachment court, Morales had revealed more details on the contents and movements of some 82 dollar bank accounts that her office says belong to Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Cuevas asked Morales if she or her office had ever verified the information provided her office by the Anti Money Laundering Council (AMLC). Morales had told the court that the initial findings of her fact finding investigation were primarily based on documents provided by the AMLC.

Morales told Cuevas that her office has not been able to do its own verification, as this would mean having to approach each of the banks concerned. Foreign deposits are protected by the Foreign Currency Deposits Act, which puts an absolute veil of secrecy over these accounts.

To this, Cuevas said that Morales appeared to have swallowed the AMLC data without any kind of verification.

“You give us the impression that you swallowed hook line and sinker the entire contents submitted to you in response to your letter request (by AMLC),” Cuevas said.

“The presumption is that they would give me correct information.” Morales replied.

At one point, Cuevas also asked what authority Morales had to investigate the Chief Justice. Cuevas cited a previous Supreme Court ruling that he said states that any investigation of alleged misconduct must have a “direct relation and connected with the performance of official duties.” Cuevas said that this means the Ombudsman cannot just investigate “any malfeasance” but one that is “in connection with performance of official duty.”

To this, Morales said her power to investigate “encompasses anything that violates the law.”

Morales said the charge against Corona is for “accumulating wealth grossly disproportional to income.”

OMBUDSMAN CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES continued her testimony on the alleged dollar accounts of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, this time telling the impeachment court that dollar accounts in Corona’s name saw withdrawals of at least $3 million in the week that Corona was impeached as well as the week that followed.

In fact, Morales stressed that her investigation revealed that there were other significant movements in the alleged Corona accounts on other “significant” dates, such as the 2004 and 2007 elections.

Morales said that on December 12, the day that Corona was impeached by the House of Representatives, there was a “placement” in one of Corona’s dollar accounts amounting to $417 thousand. On the same day, there was an “encashment to pesos” from that same account amounting to P 135 thousand.

Then on December 14, there was a purchase of a managers check using the same account to the amount of $388 thousand.

What followed was a bewildering series of movements in the account: $465 thousand in securities sold on December 15; a $75 thousand debit memo on the same day; a withdrawal of $ 343 thousand still on the same day; a purchase of a managers check for $487 thousand on December 19; a withdrawal of $ 22 thousand on the same day; and a debit memo of $687 thousand on December 20.

Morales told the impeachment court that the withdrawals from the account amounted to $3,388,323 for the month of December 2011.

At the same time, Morales said there was a $500 thousand deposit to the Bank of the Philippine Islands Acropolis branch on May 12, 2004, just two days after the May 10 Presidential elections. Then, there was another $500 thousand deposit on May 14, 2004.

For the 2007 midterm elections, Morales said there were at least five major transactions involving the BPI San Francisco del Monte dollar account being linked to Corona on May 3, 2007 alone: a deposit of $293 thousand; another deposit of $134 thousand; a deposit of $63 thousand; a deposit of $53 thousand; and another deposit of $ 15 thousand.

OMBUDSMAN CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES stressed that they had been careful and “conservative” when they computed how much Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona supposedly held in the 82 dollar accounts that the Anti Money Laundering Council (AMLC) found in his name.

Addressing concerns that the figures she presented to the Senate impeachment court yesterday may have been bloated, Morales told the impeachment court that she had preferred to err on the side of caution when she made her computations.

Morales said when they came across figures that appeared to be “double or triple of the same amount, we exclude this from the computation and use the last figure at the end of the cycle.”

Morales had told the court yesterday that 82 dollar accounts allegedly in the name of Corona had a transactional balance of up to $12 million from 2003 to 2011. In a statement to the press, Corona had accused Morales of presenting bloated figures to put him in a bad light.

Morales added that it appeared that the outflows from the account were bigger than the inflows, indicating that the amounts inside the dollar accounts were significant already even before the AMLC started monitoring their movements.

SENATOR-JUDGE Miriam Defensor Santiago is proposing that the senate impeachment court subpoena the bank managers of all the banks where Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona was supposed to own a total of 82 dollar accounts.

Santiago said it taxes logic that the bank manager of these banks did not notice anything unusual in the number as well as the movements of the bank accounts.

“it is standard practice to raise bells and whistles when more than two or three accounts are in a bank branch,” Santiago said. As such, she said the bank managers should have reported unusual occurrences early on to the Bangko Sentral or the Anti Money Laundering Council.

In yesterday’s impeachment proceedings, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales revealed the existence of at least 82 dollar bank accounts allegedly belonging to Chief Justice Renato Corona stashed in five different banks. Morales said the transactional balance of the accounts amounted to $10 million over the last eight years, with one bank branch hosting at least 34 dollar accounts allegedly owned by the Chief justice.

Presiding officer Juan Ponce Enrile said Santiago’s proposal will be discussed in caucus next week.

At the same time the Senate sitting as an impeachment court decided to strike out the testimony of Commission on Audit Commissioner Heidi Mendoza. Mendoza, sitting in lieu of Morales to make a powerpoint presentation, had revealed to the senate impeachment court that at least $30 million had flowed out of the alleged Corona accounts in the eight years that the AMLC has been monitoring the accounts.