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Sen. Pia says alleged plagiarism due to 'technical glitch'


Blame it on technical glitches. On Thursday, Senator Pia Cayetano said this was the reason behind the plagiarism accusations against her, even as she stressed that she recognizes the right of writers to be properly acknowledged. 
 
Earlier this week, a blogger alleged that Cayetano copied parts of her speech on “The Status of the Philippines in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals” and her privilege speech on the World Environment Day.
 
But Cayetano maintained that she has always acknowledged the work of other writers in her speeches.
 
"I myself am a writer and a blogger. I believe that everyone is due the proper accreditation and the acknowledgment... nakalagay naman po yun sa ating Intellectual Property Code that from the moment of creation...your literary work is protected," she said in an interview with reporters.
 
But she said that it's difficult to cite all of the sources while the speech is being delivered so she just mentions the major source at the beginning and makes sure to insert footnotes where the speeches are uploaded.
 
"So sinasabi nila na bawat sentence during my speech dapat i-acknowledge ko? Mahirap naman gawin yun during the speech," she said.
 
She likewise said that in the two alleged plagiarism cases against her, her staff just encountered "technical glitches" and the footnotes failed to appear on her website.
 
"My staff has told me in some cases dun sa lumang Wordpress file hindi po napapasok ang footnotes. It's a technical glitch and they have made the appropriate corrections," she said.
 
"[So due to the] technical glitch hindi nalagay yung footnotes but I have always acknowledged that proper footnoting should be there," she added.
 
She likewise clarified that her speech on "The Status of the Philippines in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals” was never delivered on the Senate floor and was just uploaded on her website.
 
"Unfortunately yung media officer ko akala yung na-deliver kong speech naupload yun again technical glitch hindi nalagay yung footnotes but I have always acknowledged that proper footnoting should be there," she said.
 
"Sana naman po may konting nag-abala yung nag-blog...that speech was never delivered on the Senate floor...you would see that in the Senate journal," she said.
 
Further, Cayetano said this was a "simple" matter blown out of proportion.
 
"So napakasimpleng bagay and I find it quite malicious that they would try to impute malice in this but rest assured to all the writers and to all the bloggers that your literary work should always be accredited and acknowledged," she said. Plagiarism charge vs Sotto
Cayetano is not the first senator to be accused of plagiarism in the Senate.
 
Just recently, it was Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, Cayetano's adversary in the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill debate. Sotto is one of the most vocal oppositors of the RH bill in the Senate while Cayetano is one of the sponsors of the controversial measure.
 
In the first part of his Turno En Contra, Sotto described the harmful effects of contraceptives on unborn babies, using the death of his own infant son 37 years ago as his example.
 
But Alfredo Melgar, a Filipino blogger, pointed out that a lengthy passage from Sotto's speech was lifted nearly word for word from the blog of "Sarah, the healthy home economist," written by an American health advocate, Sarah Pope, who also opposes vaccines for children and offers recipes for grain-free pumpkin cookies and other organic goodies.
 
Sotto denied the allegation, saying that he was quoting from a book by a Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. His chief-of-staff, lawyer Hector Villacorta, later took the blame for the incident, even claiming that blogs are meant to be shared. 
 
But Pope insisted in a blog post that the words Sotto used were hers and not McBride's, calling the senator a "lying thief." — RSJ, GMA News
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