Plagiarism. Bow.

First and foremost, what is plagiarism?

Did Senator Vicente "Tito" Sotto and his staff commit plagiarism? This looks like plagiarism to me.

But Senator Sotto apparently doesn't think so:

“Bakit ko naman iko-quote ang blogger? Blogger lang iyon. Ang kino-quote ko si Natasha Campbell-McBride.” 

Are you kidding me, Mr. Senator?!

Sarah Pope, the owner of the blog where Sen. Sotto and his staff copy-pasted significant portions of his anti-RH bill speech, was obviously not pleased. In an ANC interview:

Sarah Pope, in a telephone interview from Florida with Tina Monzon-Palma on ANC's "The World Tonight," reminded Sotto about copyright law amid allegations that the senator's staff copied one of her blog posts verbatim and without permission for Sotto's speech against the reproductive health bill.

"He is acting as though he's above the law, that he is above copyright law, that he can do whatever he wants, he can step on whoever he wants,  to get his agenda through the Philippine legislature," Pope said.

"That's just wrong,  that's poor very behavior. I hope the Filipino people great note of this behavior  and subsequent denial on his bad behavior on the part of Senator Sotto. Think about this when they go to the election booths when he's up for reelection," she added.

Sen. Sotto's Chief of Staff, Atty. Hector A. Villacorta, agreed with his boss (duh) and took the blame for him. From Rappler:

Villacorta said that while the staff may have failed to attribute at times, it did not make it a habit to source information from blogs. The staff is composed of a team of 7 lawyers and researchers.

“In hindsight, perhaps we should have mentioned that we also got it from Sarah’s blog but it may be inelegant to say that.”

Sotto’s chief of staff added, “There is no jurisprudence on that (quoting blogs) because blogs are part of public domain. They can test the liability of the senator but that is virgin territory, even in the US.”

“Are you also going to accuse the Constitutional Commission of plagiarism for copying the Bill of Rights of other countries like the US?”
Villacorta said that both Sotto and Pope quoted McBride because the two used the phrase “according to.”

The chief of staff added that Sotto and his staff took the pains to cite and recite the speech’s book and newspaper sources even if this took up so much time on the Senate floor.

I cannot believe the nerve of this person. Anty-Copy/Paste Act of 2012? Where do I sign up?

I graduated from De La Salle University-Manila where plagiarism is considered a major offense. The offender can be put under probation, suspended, dismissed and/or even expelled for it. Just saying.

I'm mad that we have a Senator who cheats, doesn't do his homework and plagiarizes the work of other people. I'm mad that he refuses to apologize and own up to his mistake. I'm also mad that he hires people who are equally as incompetent as he is. God save the Philippines.