Sotto in trouble and he doesn't even know

With this entire hullabaloo dragging Sen. Sotto into the fullness of superstardom, I can’t help but quote for him Mark Twain’s words: “It isn’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just isn’t so.”

After he delivered the last part of his “turno en contra” speech against the Reproductive Health bill, Sen. Sotto said his critics have gone as low as watching every word he says because they are unable to answer his arguments against the bill. This he said two days ago, following the noise that broke up in social media which was directed more into slamming the senator’s credibility as his name is now,for a number of times, tied up to allegations of plagiarism.

It never reached two hours before bloggers have identified that indeed, Sotto did it again. His latest speech contained in verbatim “tagalog-ized” excerpts from the 1966 South Africa Day of Affirmation speech of Robert F. Kennedy. What’s more, the senator could not get even funnier upon saying to the press, “I translated it into Tagalog. So what’s the problem? Ano? Marunong nang mag-Tagalog si Kennedy?”

It seems Sen. Sotto is in big trouble and he doesn’t even know!

To be honest, I have never paid this much attention to the issue than now. This is because at least I would like to give the senator the chance to correct himself. True, everyone commits mistakes, even silly mistakes for that matter. So at the onset of reports saying this and that on Sen. Sotto, I didn’t bother giving it a thought at all.

But whatever this show he is trying to put up, what’s sure is it’s not just a simple case of committing silly mistakes. It’s committing silly mistakes and even being proud of it. To say it in Cebuano, “nigara man hinuon ni siya.”And that pride he sees in what he did, that kind of ignorance, that’s what makes it even more intolerable now.

The people could have honestly easily forgiven him doing it one or two times, but now, he strikes back anew with quite an innovative ploy – converting other people’s English speech in Tagalog, word for word, and claiming it his own since the original speaker could not speak in Tagalog! I hope I am not alone in believing that whether served hard boiled, omelette or sunny side up, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re eating just the same piece of egg.

I think the senator might have overlooked, plagiarism does not merely constitute the act of copying to the last letter. In fact, at the world-renowned Hong Kong University, closely paraphrasing or substantial copying with minor modifications (such as changing grammar, adding a few words or reversing active/passive voices) is still copying for that purpose. It is not so much the form of the copying that is important, but the substance of what is copied.

So he should know by now, this clatter coming from all quarters of the country is founded on some principle. The guiding principle is we Filipinos may be resourceful but it should not go low as saying we are copycats! We are a nation of creative people, capable of innovating ideas and making them real. But if our lawmakers, in whose hands rest delicately our country’s political backbone, will now be the first ones to strangle the beauty of being original and innovative, then our doom’s day may come earlier than December 2012.

What we need are leaders who can genuinely create solutions. Sen. Sotto has shown the Filipinos he is not of that kind.

I don’t know if he’s just acting to be right or really knows he’s wrong. Whatever the case, I will settle with Bertrand Russell’s famous quote:“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser men so full of doubts.”