Justice, on December 22, 2011, Marites Dañguilan Vitug of the now defunct and highly discredited online "journalism" site Rappler, which was shut down by a unanimous decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for violating the constitutional provision banning foreign ownership in media ></ref>, published an article alleging that the University of Santo Tomas (UST) "may have broken its rules" in granting Corona a doctorate in civil law and qualifying him for honors. Vitug's allegations were later exposed as part of a large-scale black propaganda campaign against the Chief Justice. Vitug, Rappler, and Maria Ressa, Rappler's CEO, have been discredited since Ressa was convicted of libel, a decision the Court of Appeals upheld, ruling that Ressa "did not offer a scintilla of proof that they verified the imputations of various crimes in the disputed article ... [Rappler] just simply published them as news in their online publication in reckless disregard of whether they are false or not.". The judgement also pointed out that Ressa had deliberately called herself an executive editor, rather than the editor-in-chief, in an attempt to avoid liability. In a statement, the UST Graduate School denied that it broke its rules to favor Corona. It added that Corona had enrolled in all of the requisite subjects leading to the doctorate, attended his classes, passed them and delivered a "scholarly treatise" for his dissertation in a public lecture. UST said that since it has been declared by the Commission on Higher Education as an "autonomous higher educational institution (HEI)" it thus enjoys an institutional academic freedom to set its standards of quality and excellence and determine to whom it shall confer appropriate degrees. It added that issues about Corona's residency and academic honor received were moot because these come under the institutional academic freedom of the university. UST likewise questioned the objectivity of the article citing that Vitug has had a run-in with Corona and the Supreme Court. Vitug supported Associate Justice Antonio Carpio's bid for the chief justiceship in her articles in Rogue and Newsbreak. Impeachment On December 12, 2011, 188 of the 285 members of the House of Representatives signed an impeachment complaint against Corona. As only a vote of one-third of the entire membership of the House, or 95 signatures, were necessary for the impeachment of Corona under the 1987 Constitution, the complaint was sent to the Senate for trial. Corona was accused of