Pia Cayetano: Research, not plagiarism

The depth of one’s research can be proven when the writer or researcher cites the authors and other authorities quoted in the work.

Thus spoke Sen. Pia Cayetano who had her turn in the hot seat earlier this week after Filipino bloggers accused her of using quotes without attribution in her speeches.

Cayetano fired a volley of tweets after a group calling itself Pinoy Templars said the chairperson of the Senate women and family relations committee had borrowed quotes from “at least” the Department of Health and the United Nations Environment Program (Unep) in her speeches.

The Templars expressed disappointment at Cayetano whom they apparently expected to do better than Senate Majority Leader Tito Sotto who was accused earlier of lifting statements against contraceptives from a US-based blogger.

Cayetano and Sotto are on opposite sides of the reproductive health (RH) measure. Cayetano is the principal sponsor of the RH bill in the Senate that has been pending for a year now. Sotto is one of its most rabid opponents.

Bloggers earlier pummeled Sotto for allegedly lifting from US-based Sarah Pope’s blog several statements made by author Natasha Campbell-McBride against the use of contraceptives.

Part of process

“Citing authors and sources is part of the writing process. I am happy to do (this) because it shows the depth of research done,” was one of the tweets that Cayetano posted on her Twitter page @piacayetano.

“I tweeted before, our Intellectual Property Code states that [one’s] literary work is protected [from] the time of creation,” she also said.

The local Templars charged that lines that appeared in Cayetano’s February 2011 speech on “The Status of the Philippines Achieving the Millennium Development Goals” actually came from a presentation made by Health Undersecretary Mario Villaverde in April 2008.

A more recent speech made by the senator on World Environment Day allegedly took a “crucial paragraph” from the Unep website with “nary an attribution,” the Templars said.

“I respect that and practice attributions in my Senate speeches since I often quote UN [United Nations] and other sources,” said one of Cayetano’s tweets.

“Even in my personal work, I habitually attribute my sources. As an [example], see my blog [regarding] impeachment mydailyrace.com/?p=1983,” another tweet said.

“If at any time, I fail to attribute, I immediately make the necessary corrections and amends,” Cayetano said.

Her messages, however, made no mention of the Templars or the quotes allegedly taken from sources that supposedly remained unnamed in her speeches.