Ganito na ba talaga ka baba ang mga senador natin?

[Bin Diesel]

Plagiarism common practice, OK in Senate, says Sotto

Plagiarism is rampant in the Senate, but some staff members of senators consider it an acceptable practice.



Passages from various authors are included in the speeches of senators and entire legislative bills are being copied and passed off as their own.



The chief of staff of Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto on Wednesday said it was a common practice among Senate staff members to scout for bills that a previous Congress had failed to enact into law and repackage them as their bosses’ pet measures.



For instance, the reproductive health (RH) bill that Sen. Miriam Santiago filed in 1997 has undergone so many incarnations before its current packaging as the committee report that she and Pia Cayetano, chairperson of the committee on women and family relations, now endorse.



Why reinvent the wheel?



“Copying is a common practice. Why do you need to think of a brand-new measure when a good one that was not enacted already exists?” said Hector Villacorta, Sotto’s chief of staff.



At a breakfast forum, Villacorta said former senators would sometimes approach incumbent ones and ask them to refile the measures that failed to reach approval during the former senators’ term.



“They request new senators to refile [the bills] because (these are) already in the archives. Why reinvent the wheel? Re-filing is an accepted practice. It is called copying,” he said.



Word for word



There are also instances when a senator’s staff goes through bills not enacted by a previous Congress and copy these word for word.



“It’s really copying …. Why exert effort when these bills are just lying around?” Villacorta said.



He explained that this was an acceptable practice because “a bill not acted upon dies with an old Congress. So when the new Congress takes over, the staff of the new senators will find out that can still be revived.”



Two senators are being assailed on social networking sites for their alleged failure to attribute information from sources on the Internet contained in their speeches.



Sotto was chastised for not acknowledging a US blogger whose work his researcher cited in a speech against the RH bill last week.



Cayetano was similarly ridiculed for allegedly not mentioning two institutions in separate speeches on maternal health and the environment.



Rationalization



Even Villacorta himself was whipped on the Web for saying that Philippine laws do not have provisions that penalize anyone who freely lifts information from the Internet.



Still, Villacorta said it was easier to rationalize the filing of unoriginal bills than delivering unoriginal speeches because even the Constitution was “plagiarized” from the US charter.



“We plagiarized the US Constitution. All the amendments became our Bill of Rights. But do they call us a plagiaristic country? No, because the law is based on precedent,” Sotto’s chief of staff said.



“Even our Insurance Code is a plagiarized document. The proposed freedom of information bill is plagiarized. What’s more, the Senate and House (of Representatives) versions of the RH bill are very similar. So who is plagiarizing who?” he added.



Villacorta reminded everyone that “the Bible reached us today because the monks copied from the Greeks. Everything really started from a little copying.”



All plagiarists



“Even our image was copied from God. We are all plagiarists,” he said.



Former Sen. Ernesto Maceda was in the Senate Wednesday and acknowledged that the copying of bills from a previous Congress was indeed considered acceptable among his peers during his term.



In the case of speeches, “when we lifted a passage or quotation, we gave the corresponding attribution to the source,” he said.



However, Maceda would not hold Sotto and Cayetano personally accountable for passages in their speeches that might have failed to attribute the right sources.



“I can believe the two senators if they say their speeches were prepared by their staff. It was an omission…. I think to me it’s not a big thing. It’s forgivable if it does not really affect the overall content of the speech…. Almost all senators depend on staff work,” he explained.



Magnanimous



Santiago was also magnanimous when asked about the issue.



“Maybe the speech writer just overlooked it…. This is politics so I guess we should give more leeway to the senators as long as later on they admit that they took it from some other source and they acknowledge that source,” she said.



“This is not academe where it is grave, in effect a mortal sin not to attribute something to its source or author,” Santiago added.



Still, Maceda said it would be good if the senators would “express an apology to authors asking it.”



Not on Villacorta’s watch in the case of Sotto. “Senator Sotto was not personally responsible for preparing the speech. He only read it on the floor. Besides, I already apologized to (US blogger) Sarah Pope,” he said.



Too awkward



Villacorta said Sotto’s researchers initially tried searching for the website of US author Natasha Campbell-McBride but could not open it.



The researchers resorted instead to Sarah Pope’s blog, believing her quotes of Campbell-McBride’s work was verbatim.



“We cannot draw up a speech that says ‘according to this blogger who quoted this author.’ It’s simply too awkward. Besides, what would the Senate President say,” Villacorta said.



“A whole gamut of ‘according to’ would also not make the speech credible. This is the Senate we are talking about,” he added.

Sagad na sa buto kakapalan ng mukha ng mga ito pati tayo idinamay.

[CVT]

Kaya nga Iskul Bukol ang Senado... Sinampolan na ng isa sa mga Escalera bros.... Dapat, si Tonette Macho na lang ang ibinoto...

Teka,- sino ba ang bumoto sa (mga) gvngg*ng na mga iyan?....

16.7K:weathermanf2:>:sampay:

[ZENMasterTYL]

dapat pa imbestigahan ang mga mokong nato, halatang lango sa drugs

All plagiarists “Even our image was copied from God. We are all plagiarists,” he said.

[Altis6453]

Yet, its the very same Tito Sotto that keeps getting into public office, in one form or another...nakakainis!

[Bin Diesel]

Quoting from Mirriam: "God strike them dead."

[CoDer]

Mas maraming bobo dyan sa senado kesa sa mga magagaling, sample lang yang kay skul bukol.

Blame it on the masa, and brace ourself na lang this 2016. The trapos from UNA will rule the land.

[oliver1013]

Ngayon senador si mr escalera...sa susunod na election baka presidente natin si mang temi...

[Monseratto]

And they were ready to impeach a supreme court justice for the same offense...

[Bin Diesel]

And they were ready to impeach a supreme court justice for the same offense...

Kaya nga mga sira ang moral compass.

[BratPAQ]

walang copyright kaya pede kopyahin? yung titser ko nung high school, pede ko naman pala kopyahin yung answer sheet ng katabi ko, wala din naman kasi copyright yun.

[dfopiso]

Ewan ko ba sa iba bakit "nahihiya" to acknowledge or cite yung references or sources nila kahit hindi naman confidential. Laging nagpapanggap na original ang mga thoughts nila. Standard naman ang peer reviews! Ang dapat na original is the conclusion that can be derived from all references, both for and against your opinion

[ZENMasterTYL]

Ewan ko ba sa iba bakit "nahihiya" to acknowledge or cite yung references or sources nila kahit hindi naman confidential. Laging nagpapanggap na original ang mga thoughts nila. Standard naman ang peer reviews! Ang dapat na original is the conclusion that can be derived from all references, both for and against your opinion

because they try too much to be smart. akala nila sila lang may internet

[niky]

And they were ready to impeach a supreme court justice for the same offense...

Actually, lying in the SALN and not quoting sources are different offenses. The big offense on Sotto's part was when he tried to justify it.

-

The sad thing is... it would have been an excusable mistake if later on, Tito Sotto had simply said: "Sorry, I forgot to quote my sources."

Instead, he vigorously and bombastically defended his right to cut, paste and not credit sources for text, and decrying blogs as not being covered by IPR. That's the stupid part. Bloggers aren't just doing this for fun. Some bloggers make a living off their written work, and deserve all the credit they can get for it.

[Altis6453]

Actually, lying in the SALN and not quoting sources are different offenses. The big offense on Sotto's part was when he tried to justify it.

-

The sad thing is... it would have been an excusable mistake if later on, Tito Sotto had simply said: "Sorry, I forgot to quote my sources."

Instead, he vigorously and bombastically defended his right to cut, paste and not credit sources for text, and decrying blogs as not being covered by IPR. That's the stupid part. Bloggers aren't just doing this for fun. Some bloggers make a living off their written work, and deserve all the credit they can get for it.

I believe Monseratto was referring to Associate Justice Mariano Del Castillo.

I still think Justice Castillo should rightfully be impeached, as plagiarism in whatever form should not be tolerated, especially when the SC is making its opinions or decisions. Del Castillo, however, said there was no intent to plagiarise and he was quickly absolved by his bretheren in the SC (those appointed by GMA). Instead, the SC trained its guns on the academics who complained about it, including the author of the article whose text Del Castillo's opinion shamelessly copied and pasted to his ponencia.

[cast_no_shadow]

Sotto kept on justifying his plagiarism lalo lang niya pinapalalim yung libingan niya.
Masyadong ma-pride hindi matanggap na bukayo siya. Wala bang banat si brenda sa kanya?
Masyado nagmamagaling ampaw naman. andami talaga gunggong sa senado.

[zap.FREEDOM]

yan si mr.sotto e tinatrabaho na rin ng mga taga-U.P, tignan natin kung hanggang saan ang tapang niyang matandang yan....



(credits/courtesy to MOVE U.P. -A leadership and service formation in the University of the Philippines.)

[oliver1013]

Iba talaga mentalidad ng pinoy..tigas talaga. Kung american senator kaya ano ang reaksiyon pag ganito rin ang sitwasyon

[ZENMasterTYL]

^ kung ibang lahi yan, nag resign na agad yan

[greenlyt]

two years after sotto's son's death because of contraceptives, he composed this song:

[shadow]

Ok na napanood na ng staff ni sotto speech ni romny then kanina Si Michelle O..

Bookmarked and save daw for future reference...


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