Pinoy-style plagiarism in the Facebook era

What do business tycoon Manny Pangilinan, real estate magnate Manny Villar, and Supreme Court Justice Mariano del Castillo have in common? The year 2010 will go down in history as the year "plagiarism" became a buzzword in the Filipino psyche. GMANews.TV recalls the copy-cat syndrome that seemed to have struck some of the highest and mightiest. MVP's graduation speech

In his speech before the Ateneo de Manila University's graduating class last March 27, business tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan said he had a hard time writing his commencement address. "I have wracked my heart and mind with what I should say today... And I‘ve asked myself, what I wish I had known at my own graduation day 44 years ago," says Pangilinan. As it turns out, the sentence was only one of several passages that were almost identical to portions of the speech delivered by "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling at Harvard in 2008. A check of Pangilinan's address showed that he lifted passages from the speeches of US President Barack Obama, television host Oprah Winfrey, and even comedian Conan O'Brien. Click here for complete breakdown of Pangilinan’s speech and the sources of his "borrowed" phrases Reports of the plagiarism first circulated on Facebook. Soon after the online firestorm, Pangilinan issued an apology and offered to resign as Ateneo Board of Trustees chair after admitting that he had borrowed portions of his speech from other sources. Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, Ateneo president, and the Ateneo board said the offer was unnecessary and that an apology would suffice. But Pangilinan, who heads the telecommunication giant PLDT, said his resignation was irrevocable. Manny Villar's campaign ad Senator Manuel Villar's campaign team may have garnered praise for the catchy "Dagat ng Basura" jingle, which even indigenous peoples in far-flung provinces memorized by heart. But they were jeered for another advertising concept that was supposedly ripped off from the political ad of Argentinian candidate Lopez Murphy, who ran for president in 2006. After the public noticed the similarities, the local agency hired by Villar admitted that Murphy's ad had inspired the "Scroll" ad but remained unapologetic. "The fact is, many ideas of the local agency have been adapted in many countries in our network, the most recent of which is the work it had done for Absolut vodka. That's how powerful ideas become even more powerful," said TBWA\Philippines. "While the ad format was adapted from 'The Truth' ad by TBWA\Argentina, the message is genuinely Manny Villar's. And it hopes to inspire a country deeply steeped in hopelessness, negativity and cynicism," it added. Supreme Court justice blames Word program The Supreme Court is often described as the last bulwark of democracy, the guardian against any form of cheating, including intellectual dishonesty. So when a member of the Supreme Court bench was accused of committing plagiarism, the scandal caused a stir not just in the country's legal community but in the wider public as well. In April this year, Supreme Court Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo wrote a decision denying the pleas of World War II sex slavery victims to seek government help in compelling Japan to provide them with reparation. But Del Castillo allegedly lifted portions of his ponencia from at least three foreign sources. Two American authors later complained that Del Castillo "twisted" the meaning of their words to suit his denial of the comfort women's request. Del Castillo brushed aside the plagiarism accusations and submitted himself to the high tribunal's ethics investigation. At the height of the controversy, 37 law professors from the University of the Philippines’ College of Law, led by Dean Marvic Leonen, issued a "Restoring Integrity" statement calling for the magistrate's resignation. In October, the SC ruled that plagiarism was not committed because Del Castillo had “no malicious intent" when he failed to provide proper attribution in what was described as "accidental decapitation." Instead, the SC trained its guns on the UP law professors and ordered them to "show cause" -- or explain why they should not be held in contempt for making a public statement on the pending case. To date, the SC has yet to act on the answer submitted by the law professors. Retaliation against the UP law dean? In December, the tables were seemingly turned on UP law's Dean Marvic Leonen after the lawyers' group Philippine Social Justice Foundation (Philjust) called his attention to alleged plagiarism in his article published in the Integrated Bar of the Philippines journal in 2004. Sources in the legal community claimed that Philjust may have ties with Del Castillo and his wife, former Ateneo law school dean Cynthia del Castillo, but lawyer Samson Alcantara of Philjust has denied harassing the UP law dean. Leonen said the letter from Philjust smacked of efforts to malign him because copies were furnished to the UP Board of Regents (BOR) and SC Chief Justice Renato Corona. In contrast to Del Castillo, Leonen offered to resign after admitting that he failed to cite attributions to at least two works by American academic Owen Lynch, a visiting professor at UP law. Even though Lynch cleared the dean and said they have shared the same ideas in their collaborative work for 24 years, Leonen stood pat on his resignation offer. "If I were a professor looking back at my work, I would have said that's a demerit, or something which falls short of the level of excellence required in the UP College of Law," he said. The BOR, the highest governing body in the UP system, has yet to decide on Leonen's fate. PHL tourism's not-so-ganda logo The Department of Tourism's "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" tourism campaign took off to a not-so-beautiful start. Critics asked how the new slogan can attract the international market when it is in Tagalog. The accompanying website (www.beautifulpilipinas.com) was also taken down because a porn site had a similar name. Allegations that the DOT copied the slogan's design from Poland's "Polska" tourism logo further fueled the firestorm. Campaigns and Grey, the ad and public relations agency commissioned to produce the logo, later said it prepared five design ideas, but the DOT already wanted to launch the Polska-inspired one. The agency said it was "shocked" that the tourism department decided to go public at once, saying "We repeatedly warned the client that it was premature to launch, or even preview the study, but apparently, preparations for the tour operator event were already underway." In the wake of the controversy, DOT Undersecretary Enteng Romano resigned after admitting that he had directed Campaigns and Grey to use the Polska-inspired logo. However, he maintained that plagiarism was not committed. "Getting inspiration from existing designs is not an uncommon practice. In fact, in one of the definitions of plagiarism, it is stated that, 'While plagiarism is condemned in academia and journalism, in the arts it is often a major part of the creative process,'" said Romano. – YA/HS, GMANews.TV