Is Plagiarism a Mistake?
Is it really that hard to admit mistakes nowadays?
When we were little, doing mistakes were essential on our growth, for us to experience the pains we should be accustomed to when we grow up. That life is not made the way we initially envisioned it, as if we would be in the land of milk and honey.
But such mistakes usually have repercussions to go with it.
When Sen. Tito Sotto delivered an anti-Reproductive Health speech in the Senate, which allegedly had copied portions from a foreign blogger named Sarah Pope, what did the senator’s party do? They slammed the accusations and said that there is no such law barring plagiarism in the country.
To further lament their claim, the senator, in his next privilege speech in the Senate, tagalized a 1966 speech made by former US Robert Kennedy.
But this was not the first case that plagiarism was dragged into national attention following a mistake made by a personality in power.
In 2010, Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo was acquitted by the Supreme Court for charges of plagiarism after not attributing the quotes he used in one of his court ruling.
Going opposite of the decision was the group of Young Public Servants, which had the late Niel Lim as one of its members, made a paper entitled, “In defense of common sense”.
It said, “It is not only about whether we now have the license to plagiarize or if members of the high court should enjoy immunity from liability of intellectual theft, but that the Supreme Court decision has stretched the meaning of what is tolerable in a democratic society.”
Moreover, the newly installed Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, in her dissenting opinion on the del Castillo case, said that, “Plagiarism... is often identified with the punishment of 'academic death.' The academe justifies the harshness of the sanctions it imposes with the seriousness of the offense: plagiarism is seen not only to undermine the credibility and importance of scholarship, but also to deprive the rightful author of what is often one of the most valuable currencies in the academe."
Going back to the Sotto case, he said that there were no laws against the act of plagiarism in the country. But it has been known that the case of plagiarism is punishable not just in the University rules and in the Philippine law, but even in the international scene.
We have the Philippine Copyright Law inside Republic Act No. 8293, or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, but laws against plagiarism in our country is as vague as the real ending in the movie “Inception”.
In the academe, one found guilty of plagiarizing, which is also seen as a form of cheating, could be penalized from a suspension and as far as expulsion. It is indeed that grave of a sin.
But given how clouded the definition of our judicial system has in the case of plagiarism, wouldn’t common sense be enough for one to decipher what is right and wrong?
I mean, if you know that a deed is bad, would you still do it? If there is not such law on theft, would you rob a bank because there is no law prohibiting one from stealing in the country just to make yourself richer?
Isn’t plagiarism also a kind of stealing, but this time, an intellectual one?
Sometimes, even the slightest thing, like the conscience, makes a lot of difference.
And to retort and go as far as proposing an “anti-blogging bill”? Isn’t that a clear case of an offense against the right of the people to freedom of expression, duly written in the Bill of Rights, as mandated by the Constitution?
Now that is just plain foolishness on Mr. Sotto’s part.
Is it a case of pride for the senator to not admit the mistakes that he has done? After all, I guess he exhausted all of his efforts just to justify the things he had done in the past few weeks.
Or its just the way it is today, that somebody in power can do what he wants, even bending the rules, yet go unscathed?
Apologizing for the “misattribution” Sen. Sotto’s party had won’t really help their cause. Public backlash have already poured hard on them that they got to the point that the senator cried foul of the cyber-bullying they had after the plagiarism incident.
But a simple sorry might have changed a little bit of that.
An ex-President did it before, though anything that she have done changed nothing. Why can’t the senator do it for his mistakes?
Or is Sen. Sotto just scared that he will still be charged of plagiarism by saying, “I am sorry,” a la GMA? J
When we were little, doing mistakes were essential on our growth, for us to experience the pains we should be accustomed to when we grow up. That life is not made the way we initially envisioned it, as if we would be in the land of milk and honey.
But such mistakes usually have repercussions to go with it.
When Sen. Tito Sotto delivered an anti-Reproductive Health speech in the Senate, which allegedly had copied portions from a foreign blogger named Sarah Pope, what did the senator’s party do? They slammed the accusations and said that there is no such law barring plagiarism in the country.
To further lament their claim, the senator, in his next privilege speech in the Senate, tagalized a 1966 speech made by former US Robert Kennedy.
But this was not the first case that plagiarism was dragged into national attention following a mistake made by a personality in power.
In 2010, Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo was acquitted by the Supreme Court for charges of plagiarism after not attributing the quotes he used in one of his court ruling.
Going opposite of the decision was the group of Young Public Servants, which had the late Niel Lim as one of its members, made a paper entitled, “In defense of common sense”.
It said, “It is not only about whether we now have the license to plagiarize or if members of the high court should enjoy immunity from liability of intellectual theft, but that the Supreme Court decision has stretched the meaning of what is tolerable in a democratic society.”
Moreover, the newly installed Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, in her dissenting opinion on the del Castillo case, said that, “Plagiarism... is often identified with the punishment of 'academic death.' The academe justifies the harshness of the sanctions it imposes with the seriousness of the offense: plagiarism is seen not only to undermine the credibility and importance of scholarship, but also to deprive the rightful author of what is often one of the most valuable currencies in the academe."
Going back to the Sotto case, he said that there were no laws against the act of plagiarism in the country. But it has been known that the case of plagiarism is punishable not just in the University rules and in the Philippine law, but even in the international scene.
We have the Philippine Copyright Law inside Republic Act No. 8293, or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, but laws against plagiarism in our country is as vague as the real ending in the movie “Inception”.
In the academe, one found guilty of plagiarizing, which is also seen as a form of cheating, could be penalized from a suspension and as far as expulsion. It is indeed that grave of a sin.
But given how clouded the definition of our judicial system has in the case of plagiarism, wouldn’t common sense be enough for one to decipher what is right and wrong?
I mean, if you know that a deed is bad, would you still do it? If there is not such law on theft, would you rob a bank because there is no law prohibiting one from stealing in the country just to make yourself richer?
Isn’t plagiarism also a kind of stealing, but this time, an intellectual one?
Sometimes, even the slightest thing, like the conscience, makes a lot of difference.
And to retort and go as far as proposing an “anti-blogging bill”? Isn’t that a clear case of an offense against the right of the people to freedom of expression, duly written in the Bill of Rights, as mandated by the Constitution?
Now that is just plain foolishness on Mr. Sotto’s part.
Is it a case of pride for the senator to not admit the mistakes that he has done? After all, I guess he exhausted all of his efforts just to justify the things he had done in the past few weeks.
Or its just the way it is today, that somebody in power can do what he wants, even bending the rules, yet go unscathed?
Apologizing for the “misattribution” Sen. Sotto’s party had won’t really help their cause. Public backlash have already poured hard on them that they got to the point that the senator cried foul of the cyber-bullying they had after the plagiarism incident.
But a simple sorry might have changed a little bit of that.
An ex-President did it before, though anything that she have done changed nothing. Why can’t the senator do it for his mistakes?
Or is Sen. Sotto just scared that he will still be charged of plagiarism by saying, “I am sorry,” a la GMA? J