Plagiarism or not

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

The last time I checked, plagiarism was still defined as the act of copying somebody’s written work, or using someone else’s words, ideas, phrases, even statistics, without giving him or her credit or attribution.

None of the dictionaries said plagiarism is one thing inside the halls of the Senate, and another outside of it. In other words, plagiarism is plagiarism wherever it is committed.

I just had to check things out before writing this because a Senator of our Republic, the honorable Tito Sotto, is saying he did not plagiarize even if he had lifted entire sentences from bloggers and a former American senator, and used them in his speech without saying they weren’t his own. He also said he did not plagiarize portions of former American Senator Robert Kennedy’s because he had translated it to Tagalog.

Wise in the ways of sound bytes, Sotto had quipped: They’re just bloggers, when he was confronted with their works which he had copied. Another sound byte: Marunong bang managalog si Senator Kennedy? (Does Senator Kennedy know how to speak Tagalog?) – his way of initially dismissing the idea that he had plagiarized the famous American senator.

Of course, that cute quip, like quicksand, further sucked down Sotto: he must mean it isn’t plagiarism when it has been translated? Still another quicksand quip: Apologize to Kennedy? Apologize for what? which simply proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that the man did not know the meaning of plagiarism. That, or he is showing his true colors as a politician, who has mastered the art of slithering out of compromising situations at the expense of what is right and true.

Of course, Sotto has already apologized to Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the former senator, who wrote him a letter demanding it. Of course, Sotto accompanied his apology with thinly-veiled derision: okay, if it is really important to her, I apologize. In other words, after all the noise and ill-wind he has started, Sotto remains unrepentant and insists he is innocent.

But, as in any case where one attempts to disregard what is true, Sotto is simply opening up more quicksand to fall into. Now, he is saying whatever he says in the Senate is protected by the privilege of immunity from suit, given to all senators to ensure they can say what they want to say to ferret out the truth in their sessions.

Sadly, Sotto is not using that privilege to promote the truth or public good. He is invoking it to cover up for what is plainly, a wrong that he has done. To listen to him dismiss “those” bloggers and academicians, who he said exist in a world of rules that shouldn't and cannot be used in the Senate, is to see how bad, bad politics can go in this country.

Here is a comedian we elected to our Senate, who now displays the stunning fact that he does not know the meaning of plagiarism, and would now use the laws of the Republic to cover up his ignorance. Too, it is difficult to accept that Sotto, who has been fighting against piracy of films and music, would now pretend not to know the impact of plagiarism on people, especially to us whose work relies on words and ideas.

Plagiarism is stealing, in the same manner that piracy of films and songs is stealing. While our words and ideas do not have a price tag on them like the DVDs of movies and music, stealing them, by way of plagiarism, hurts beyond our pockets.

We writers are not paid for our words in the same scale as filmmakers and composers are, and stealing our works strike at our hearts because that is really all that we have. Now, this senator is telling us he can lift our works, use them in the Senate without our permission, and get away with it because he is protected by our laws. I wonder how he feels every time he sees his movies being sold in the black market. Or do people still buy them anyway?*

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