Regulating blogs in the Philippines

Senator Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto III

When Senate Majority Floor Leader Vicente ‘Tito’  Sotto III (fondly called Tito Sen) cried during his first privilege speech opposing the Reproductive Health bill about two weeks ago, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile commiserated with him.

I guess you all now know how Sotto was criticized and pilloried from all over–first for plagiarizing parts of his speech; second, for insulting bloggers (why will I quote a blogger; she’s just a blogger); and third, for insisting that he did not do anything wrong.

In a second privilege speech yesterday, he courted further criticism.  He moved that the plagiarized parts of his speech be   stricken off the Senate official records.  He asserted that plagiarism is not a crime.

The icing on top of the cake is a complaint.  The Inquirer quotes him: “Perhaps I’ve been the first senator in the Philippines to fall victim to cyber-bullying.”

My answer to the honorable senator: Perhaps, the Filipinos are the first people to fall victim to plagiarism by an officer of the Senate and a Supreme Court associate justice.

Sotto also got back at his critics who mostly used social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, and the response platforms of news outlets like ABS-CBN News, GMA TV News, ABC 5, Rappler, PCIJ and the like.   He recognized that most of these critics may be more educated than he is.  However, he asked rhetorically if they helped anyone at all.  Furthermore, he claimed that the plagiarizing charges were a demolition job against him for opposing the RH bill.

It could be at this point that the idea of regulating blogs came up.  In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is now requiring bloggers and online writers to disclose any payments or gifts for promoting products or services.  So if a blogger reviews and promotes mobile phones and receives free phones, he will be fined if he does not make a disclosure.

How about political blogs?  How do you regulate them?  Should they be regulated in the first place?  Blogs are covered by the constitutional provision on free speech.  Aren’t there enough laws that can regulate blogs like libel?  If a blogger advocates the overthrow of government, he could be charged with sedition or rebellion?  Of course, the blogger enjoys the anonymity of cyberspace.  Investigators, however, can trace his IP address(es).

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile

Do you think the supply of horror stories got exhausted at this point?  How wrong can you be!

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile wades in and confesses he is Internet-illiterate.  He does not know what blogs are.  He thought they were slogans.  He does not have a blog of his own.  Yet he readily sees the need to pass a law that will regulate blogs.

Mr. Senate President, Majority Floor Leader Vicente Sotto III was not only criticized through blogs.  He was also criticized through all other online platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Will you also propose to regulate the use of these platforms?

If such a law will be passed, we will be victimized anew.  We will probably be the first country that will have a blog regulation law initiated by senatorial pique (sa ating wika, pikon)!

Blogs, copyrights, and reproductive health

Senator Tito Sotto

Senate Majority Floor Leader Tito Sotto recently broke down into tears while delivering a speech opposing the Reproductive Health bill in the upper chamber.  Together with the Catholic Church, Sotto is one of the most vocal and active opponents of the said controversial measure.

It was soon revealed that some parts of his speech were taken from the blog of  someone named Sarah, an American who styles herself as a healthy home economist (seehttp://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/)  In her own words, Sarah described herself like so: .

“I am a 40-something, Wife and Mother of three.  I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Economics (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Furman University and a Master of Government Administration from the University of Pennsylvania.  In 1997, I left my ten year career designing and implementing financial systems for corporate and governmental clients to become a Mom – the BEST Mom I could be (never perfect).  This entailed learning a massive amount about nutrition in order to birth and raise healthy children with no learning disabilities, allergies or other issues that are so prevalent in our young ones today.  As a result, since 2002, I’ve found myself in the role as a Nutrition Educator and Chapter Leader for the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to getting the truth about nutrition out to the masses.”

Predictably, Sotto was charged with plagiarism.  In response, those in the pro-Sotto camp noted that his detractors did not notice a qualification made at the start of his speech–a qualification that he used another’s words.  Sotto, however, did not identify his generous lender of such words as:

“Gut imbalance brought on through use of The Pill negatively impacts the ability to digest food and absorb nutrients. As a result, even if a woman eats spectacularly well during pregnancy, if she has been taking oral contraceptives for a period of time beforehand, it is highly likely that she and her baby are not reaping the full benefits of all this healthy food as the lack of beneficial flora in her gut preclude this from occurring.”

In cyberspace, several derivative arguments and issues were forwarded and debated.  One, that plagiarism is a small offense compared to the violation of God’s law to preserve human life at every stage.  Next, do blog writers have copyright to their blogs?  One camp believed they do while another thought otherwise.

As a writer myself, I believe that all writers must be properly recognized.  This means that when others use their work, the user must acknowledge the latter’s authorship.  However, there are proposals to reform the old copyright system.  Wikipedia reports of Creative Commons, a non-profit organization based in California “devoted to expanding the range of  creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.    The organization has released several copyright-licenses known Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.”

I have not yet applied for a CC license and may not even do so.  Since my blog is published in cyber-sphere, I am aware of the greater chances of being plagiarized.  I can only hope that users will not do so since acknowledging my work takes only a few keystrokes.  For example, if you want to cite this blog entry, you just have to copy-paste its Universal Resource Locator (URL) , like so:

https://bongmendoza.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=post

That will not make you cry, won’t it?