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!
let us not forget that it was tito sotto who pulled the strings for his brother and his co-horts in the rape of pepsi paloma. tito sotto is not giving filipinas any favors here, he just wanted to secure there will be people to vote for him on the next election so he could amass more wealth for himself. let me just share this post that i found online: “Pepsi Paloma was best known as one of the “softdrink” beauties along with starlets Coca Nicolas and Sarsi Emmanuel in Philippine Cinema of the early eighties. Her career and life were tragically cut short after an unfortunate alleged crossing of paths with comedy stars and noontime variety show personalities Joey de Leon, Richie d’Horsey, and Vic Sotto. Vic Sotto is the brother of now Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto who himself was a famous showbiz celebrity. The man who was to become Senator of the Republic starred alongside his brother Vic and Joey de Leon in various productions. The trio are well-known for their billing as “Tito Vic and Joey” with d’Horsey often joining them in supporting roles…” I got it from this website: http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2011/09/recalling-senator-tito-sottos-pepsi-paloma-connection/
Sarah, I admire you for calling Senator Tito Sotto a lying thief. You hit it right on the spot. Tito Sotto was a comedian-actor whose popularity on TV got him voted into the Senate. Unfortunately in the Philippines, the major block of voters are the poorly educated people who vote based on the popularity of actors, singers or comedians. That is why we have so many incompetent politicians being elected into office. It is such a sad state for Philippine Politics. As long as the majority of voters remain poorly educated, there will be no solution to this problem in the Philippines.
best advice, just continue the case with this senator, please… he is a COMEDIAN and he is only reading the script given to him,.. it’s better now so he can not be re-elected again.. NO APOLOGIES, GIVE THIS COMEDIAN LESSON.. PLEASE.. MAYBE HE MAY HAVE AN AWARD FOR “BEST ACTOR” IF HE MAKE APOLOGIES..
I’m a Filipino and I don’t vote and lastly PROUD to be a “Monkey” Pinoy!
Hi, Ms. Pope, I am also a blogger and as a Filipino I asked an apology for what had happened even though I am not the one who did it but it made me feel I am part of it… for me the issue is he took something from u’re write up’s and should asked permission before it was used, or should I say at least it was quoted…. the issue of RH bill for me is timely and need to be pass but I guess as a catholic country the government should conduct an information awareness about this bill, what are the pro’s and cons of this issue so that people will clearly understand about this matter because at the end of the day Filipino people are the one who will be benefited or suffer with this bill….
With regards to pills and other contraceptives it is legal here in the Philippines infact women have the choice which birth control can be use, anyway thank you so much for this post and more power to you….
That’s the Philippines for you… In your face…
Why should be it be considered as Plagiarism. When you put something on the Internet It is already public Property. There are a lot of country who can use it. A lot of students use internet materials as their own term paper and thesis reports. Your rules may not apply to ours :p
Hi Sarah! It’s sad in a way that the issue of plagiarism has sidetracked people away from the issues in your blog but I guess it may also have it’s advantages. I’m a Filipino, a photographer and a blogger as well and I strongly deplore and find extremely ignorant the claim of Sen. Sotto and his supposed aide, Atty. Villacorta that anything on the INternet is free and clear for use by anyone. How that ignorant buffoon became a lawyer I’ll never know. It’s not even a question of legality but plain and simple decency, good manners and ethics which is obviously a foreign concept for those clowns. I’m one with you on the good fight for what is right and you do have many supporters here in the Philippines. Mabuhay!!!!
Your assumption that putting something on the Internet automatically makes it public property is incorrect. Accessing something on the Internet, and using it (with proper citation) is different from copy pasting and claiming it as your own. Read up on the Internet and public domain before making ignorant statements such as this.
Also, “your rules may not apply to ours?” I don’t know about you, but when I went to college in the Philippines we had rules against plagiarism. I even know people who got caught. Unfortunately, the attitude towards plagiarism here is not as strict as it is overseas. So please don’t use being in the Philippines as an excuse to commit plagiarism, it’s insulting.
i have to disagree with you, paul dyke. your reasoning is the same with tito sotto and atty. villacorta which is so dumb. it is true that information is readily available in the internet for research papers and thesis reports but if you are going to use it, you have to paraphrase it to claim it your research work. if you’re so lazy to paraphrase and just wanted to copy paste it, you have to at least quote it and cite you source.
i’m sorry. i don’t know what school were you from and i don’t wanna know. you’re embarrassing the whole philippine school system in the world. if your school doesn’t have a high standard as other schools in the philippines, don’t say “your rules may not apply to ours”. because, in some higher standard schools in the philippines, plagiarism is a major offense and you can get expelled for it.
i’m just saying that there is still some good schools in the philippines that has its standards.
Paul Dyke: a Sotto sock puppet.
Again, snarky comments meant to muddle the issue or another useless display of “filipino machismo”.
The rest of the world calls it acting like a pussy.
Very well-written! I applaud your ability to stand up for yourself and not leave any room for tolerance of less than congruent behavior, while remaining thoughtful and compassionate to both the Senator and his experiences, and to the women of the PI. Great job, keep up the amazing work!!
This blog is terrible… comments are longer than the blog itself…. it’s terribly nice!!!!