First, let me extend a very warm welcome to the many new Filipino readers that have discovered this blog in the past 24 hours. My husband is from Australia, so I do get down to that part of the world on occasion and I hope to visit your beautiful country at some point in the future.
It is great to have you here, although the circumstances of our meeting are, to say the least, unusual.
It seems one of your esteemed Senators, Tito Sotto, plagiarized a blog post I wrote on February 23, 2011 entitled How The Pill Can Harm Your Future Child’s Health, lifting entire sections of the article basically word for word that was delivered in a speech to the Senate Floor regarding the possible passage of the highly controversial Reproductive Health Bill.
What’s worse, Senator Sotto is denying the charge of plagiarism, saying in an interview with ABS-CBN:
“Why would I quote the blogger? I was quoting Natasha McBride.”
Nice touch Senator. You almost had me convinced you were a nice guy with the tears and all.
Many of your citizens have emailed me assuring me that was a put on, and I’m starting to think they are right.
A thief is a thief, Mr. Senator. Denying it doesn’t get you off the hook; it just makes you a lying thief.
On the bright side, I am thrilled that your lapse of moral judgment has brought much-needed attention to the fact that the birth control pill can have devastating consequences to a woman’s long term health and possibly those of her children and even grandchildren. Gut dysbiosis is a serious condition that has multi-generational consequences that women need to be educated about and completely aware of before making the very personal decision to use them.
It was indeed brave of you to take this controversial position. Kudos to you for that.
By the way, I am truly sorry for the loss of your son.
As the mother of two sons myself, I can only imagine the pain and devastation you have felt from such an experience.
While this has been a highly charged and hopefully enlightening experience for all involved, it’s time now to set the drama aside and get back to fighting the good fight by continuing to educate people about how their food and pharma choices affect not only themselves but also those they dearly love.
And although my attorney will likely try to persuade me otherwise, for now I’m moving on as I’ve got work to do.
Women of the Philippines: I am terribly sorry my blog was used and twisted against you. You deserve the choice to use The Pill if you want or need to based on your particular circumstances. While I want you to know that this choice has health consequences as does the decision to use any pharmaceutical drug, I in no way would ever condone taking this choice away from you! Mabuhay!
She made the right decision not to sue. She knows allot, and I suggest to all Filipinos in this page are rather being incoherent. Leave this bogus plagiarism because it is not for you, rather it is for your said Senator. And please, RH bill does not kill. It teaches how people should know how to stop and have more knowledge about it. I am no pro nor con.
Sotto isn’t sorry…
It is not elegant to attribute portion of a Senate Speech to a blogger
“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.”
oh my lord….. I hope the Ms Sarah teach these people what intellectual property is. Away from their Philippine comfort zone. jeez o_0
http://www.rappler.com/nation/10692-sotto-isn%E2%80%99t-sorry,-says-chief-of-staff
First off, Sarah, thanks for being steadfast in all this. It’s quite embarrassing, but the topic people have started to talk about on here deviate completely from the intended message of the post.
Second, to all the trolls here who started using this as a forum for your RH bill diatribes, take it elsewhere. Her intention was to acknowledge the PLAGIARISM issue brought about by one of our stupid countrymen, not to discuss the RH Bill. That’s our problem here in the RP, not hers.
Third, to Atty. Villacorta and staff, I get your point about this blog being public and that it is for sharing, but let’s recap the stance of your office, shall we?
1) One of your writers copies and pastes portions of Sarah’s blog for use of the Senator in his speech as his own words. Not Natasha McBride’s or whoever, obviously not Sarah’s, but his as it is HIS speech.
2)When accused of plagiarism, he says he quoted McBride while he was verbally pronouncing Sarah’s words as his own, and then says, she’s just a blogger anyways.
3)You come out and apologize but not really, as you stated categorically that your intention was to acknowledge for both the Senator and Sarah, that the portion copied into his speech was from McBride. Lame.
4)You ask her to support the RH bill. Even Lamer.
5)You tell her its just a blog and meant for sharing. Does that mean that no acknowledgement is in order or that anybody can just rip off portions of the blog and count it as their own unique idea or expression? Very lame indeed.
Call a spade a spade, Atty Villacorta, and apologize properly. This was never your forum to begin with.
Pls Sue him and Help rid our country of idiots… thank you….
Yes please, we need to wake up!!!
as a filipino, i find this embarassing. A senator who plagerize? nuf said. Thats why I don’t vote celebrities to be part of the govt. Most of them just dont know what to do.
I guess Senator Sotto’s staffs are busy watching their boss on their favorite noontime show after all…
Hey Atty. Villacorta, you should’ve just shut your mouth!
God bless you, Sen. Sotto. Please continue on with the fight. Do not get discouraged from this one small, temporary, set back. We honor you and thank you for taking up the cudgels for all of us, anti RH people, who truly, honestly love this country, and willing to sacrifice for this country. Here’s one praying that God would continue to give you and all pro-God anti-RH people the strength and wisdom to carry on the fight. God bless you!
So by this you’re saying that I am not Pro-God if I support the use of contraception? Please check in your right-wing extremist insights at the door. Who are you to say that my faith is less than yours just because I choose to use a condom? Separation of Church and State, please, this is not the medieval period.
Rico, if you are willing to sacrifice for this country, then may I ask how much you’ve contributed to the efforts to provide healthcare and educational opportunities and assistance to the Filipinos at the grassroots? Have you met these people, the majority which comprise our nation, who also love this country and are also trying to find the means to survive day to day existence? I ask because their daily life is a sacrifice. And if we can help educate and inform that they do have options in life, then their daily sacrifice will be lesser.
@Agassi: NO. Anti RH Pro God was used in an “and” sense (pro God and anti RH) => intersection of the two concepts (use your Venn diagram).
@Shay: YES. I did my own share, still doing so. But that was not the point. The point was/is I support Sen Sotto and all anti RH who fight for this cause.
Hi Sarah.
After reading your original blog entry and the transcript of Sen. Tito Sotto’s speech, it is quite clear that there were huge chunks of your blog entry that have been copied verbatim in the speech. On this point, I completely agree that you should’ve been cited as a source along with Dr. Natasha McBride. This was indeed plagiarism.
This issue piqued my interest a lot, I tried looking up the rules in citing sources. I couldn’t find the rules as it applies to legal documents or speeches. I only skimmed the academic rules they follow in two US colleges/universities. Unless legal rules are different from the academic ones, I did not find anything about the need for obtaining permission nor getting approval on the usage of the quotation from the cited source. I guess this makes sense. Otherwise, how can we cite material from diseased authors or to debunk other people’s work (good luck getting approval in this case)? We can cite from several sources and come up with a completely different conclusion from all of them. This is not villainy or ‘twisting’ the message of the sources. I think the plagiarism.org site says it best: “Doesn’t citing sources make my work seem less original? Not at all. On the contrary, citing sources actually helps your reader distinguish your ideas from those of your sources. This will actually emphasize the originality of your own work.”
Maybe it was just emotions running through you when you aggrieved that your permission wasn’t sought and that they “twisted the message of your blog”. But from what I read, they didn’t have to worry about either if only they properly cited you as a source. If only… SMH.
Unfortunately, that is their biggest mistake and IMHO their only mistake. Above all else, you are entitled to sincere apologies from Sen. Sotto and his staff. And I do hope you get one soon if you still haven’t.
Cheers!
Sources:
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/pages/cite/