Annette T.

Getubig Page 1 of 3
LLB- Legal Reasearch
1 EH 410 MC


Plagiarism in the context of the Philippine Judicial/Legal System

What do you think of about the word Plagiarism? Are you aware that such is a crime in our
country? Perhaps, a lot of us, common people, are naive about what it really is and how one actually does
it thus committing it as a crime. Plagiarism as defined by Websters dictionary is stealing and passing off
the ideas or words of anothers production without crediting the source. It simply means stealing parts of
the intellectual property from another person. Its absurd how one uses your works or accomplishment
without crediting you as the contributor and yet enjoys the praise of others for a work he didnt actually
make. Technically speaking, it really is stealing. Well, you might wonder, if a simple copy-paste will
already contribute to an act of plagiarism. What are the proper ways to use anothers works so as not to
commit and be liable of plagiarism?

In our country, we have this Intellectual Property Code, a special law where plagiarism is
construed upon. Under this code, we have this specific Copyright Law which stresses out the importance
of the moral rights of an author or any sort of originator of a certain work. There is a vast range of works
covered upon this Copyright Law ranging from written documents to broadcastings or the ones covered
by Optical Media Act which is also of copyright protection. This gives us an idea for the complexity of
this law and how significant it is to the modern society. On the other hand, if plagiarism utilizes
information, communications technology through the means of internet, one could also be held liable for
the newly implemented Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. This act is very practical nowadays as a
speedy uprising of cyber literate, bloggers, article writers, and the so-called netizens is becoming more
prominent in the cyber world. Thus, plagiarism is repeatedly done, easily exercised and more rights are
abused. Nonetheless, these plagiarists should strongly be mindful that years of imprisonment and large
amount of fines are disposed to anyone who infringes the Copyright Law. There are also exemptions to
Plagiarism. Like for example in the case of plagiarism against Justice Mariano Del Castillo wherein he
rendered a decision which contained portions copied from three foreign authors, thus an obvious act of
plagiarism. However, a ruling was done which says that any member of the Judiciary department needs
not to specifically give any acknowledgement or attribution to where he gets his ideas from. This is
because he is not intending to write a literary work but to settle a dispute or case. Hence Justice Del
Castillo was dismissed from the Plagiarism allegation. Another recent issue is plagiarism against Senator
Tito Sotto whom during his privilege speech used several statements which he got from few famous
foreign authors without even giving attributions to them. However, due to the lack of specificity of the
laws concerning plagiarism in our country, a case against him didnt prosper since his defense was that
there was no law in plagiarism in our country yet. Its awful how such issue has been ignored now and
thrown away as trash when there was obviously a plagiarism that happened.

People should be made more aware of Plagiarism. Once you copy a certain phrase, sayings, or
articles of another person, be sure to enclose it in quotation marks and most importantly attribute it to the
person where you got it from. This is to protect them from their moral rights and dignity for the
accomplishments they have made. As what Ive stated earlier that Plagiarism is a means of stealing and
Annette T. Getubig Page 2 of 3
LLB- Legal Reasearch
1 EH 410 MC

stealing is criminal offense, consequently plagiarism also is. Anti-Plagiarism laws should be keenly
executed here in the Philippines, not just to protect the intellectual property of others but also to promote
originality and develop in each and every one of us the knowledge God has provided.
























Annette T. Getubig Page 3 of 3
LLB- Legal Reasearch
1 EH 410 MC

Works Cited

In the Matter of the Charges of Plagiarism, etc., Against Associate Justice Mariano C. Del Castillo, A.M.
No. 10-7-17-SC, October 12, 2010.
Joyce C. George, Judicial Opinion Writing Handbook (2007), p. 725, cited by Justice Maria Lourdes
Sereno in her dissenting opinion.
Websters Third New International Dictionary, p. 2374.
Available at http://opinion.inquirer.net/41218/sotto-what-really-happened-in-plagiarism-issue