Plagiarism and the RH debates

MANILA, Philippines - What began as a comic sideshow to the Reproductive Health (RH) bill debates erupted into a bitter exchange of accusations and even legal threats, as Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto was accused of plagiarism as he pressed his case against the measure.

Sotto was accused of lifting passages from published documents and from a 1966 speech of the late US senator Robert Kennedy.

He was also found to have lifted passages from a 2011 blog entry by Sarah Pope and using them in his arguments against the RH bill in a privilege speech.

But the majority leader said he was quoting Natasha Campbell-McBride, who was one of the references acknowledged by Pope in her blog.

As Sotto was busy defending himself from accusations that he had plagiarized Pope, South China Morning Post journalist Raissa Robles revealed that he had plagiarized Kennedy and at least five more bloggers.

Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late senator and president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, wrote a public letter to Sotto in November accusing him of quoting without attribution portions of Kennedy’s 1966 Day of Affirmation speech.

Sotto apologized to his accusers but denied he had committed plagiarism.

Sotto’s camp also cited a Constitutional provision which states that “no member (of Congress) shall be questioned nor be held liable in any other place for any speech or debate in the Congress or in any committee thereof.”

“Whatever it is, the buck stops with me, I’m the senator. Whatever I delivered in the Senate hall is what’s important. Whatever they say, we’ll take it in stride,” he told reporters.