Tito Sotto's Side Of The Story

While, for the past few weeks, everyone was busy castigating a senator for alleged plagiarism, a columnist quietly set the record straight.

Here's an excerpt from Neal H. Cruz' column last November 20, 2012:

Media reporting on the plagiarism issue was incomplete and distorted, Senate Majority Leader Tito Sotto cried at the Kapihan sa Manila at the Diamond Hotel on Monday. 

“I am not accusing media of inaccuracy,” Sotto said, “but the sound bytes were incomplete and so gave a distorted view of the controversy.” 

“I am being accused of plagiarism, that I plagiarized a speech of former President John F. Kennedy and used his words as my own in my speech in the Senate against the RH (reproductive health) bill. I did not,” he said, adding: 

“Plagiarism is when you use somebody else’s work and claim it as your own. I did not claim the Kennedy quotes as my own. On the contrary, I said the quotes—by Kennedy and by others—are not mine. I was just using them to aid my arguments against the RH bill.” 

There is speculation that it’s the fault of Sotto’s ghostwriter. The speculation goes that the ghost, pressed for time as his deadline approached, was forced to use the Kennedy quotes—forgetting to use quotation marks—to finish the speech on time, and that Sotto himself did not know that at the time. But Sotto was man enough not to use the ghostwriter as a scapegoat and accept responsibility. 

But according to Sotto, what happened was that his staff researchers had accumulated so much quotes and information on birth control that when his speech was being crafted, they did not know who said what. 

“I made a general disclaimer,” he said in Filipino. “I said: ‘These are not my words but of others in the know on the subjects—birth control, contraceptives and abortion.’ Read my speech; the disclaimer is there. I never claimed the quotes as my own.” 

So the sin is that you forgot to use quotation marks and give proper credits? a reporter asked. 

Sotto replied: “As I said, the problem was that there was a welter of quotes that it was difficult to determine who said which quotes. So I made a general disclaimer: ‘I am not saying these. Others said them.’ I disclaimed authorship of the quotes in my speech.” 

Why don’t you furnish reporters copies of your speech? 

“I did, but the reporters disregarded the disclaimer,” the senator said. “You see, they got copies of my draft speech. But I made the disclaimer during my speech in the Senate.” 

So why don’t you give them copies of the Senate Journal where your exact words are recorded? 

“I also did that,” Sotto said. “But they paid no attention to it. They are doing it because of my opposition to the RH bill, and I know who are behind the black propaganda.”

I'm not a fan of the senator (and I have no intention of voting him if he runs again) but it was good to have his side of the story come out even from a single column. I've always had this lingering thought that perhaps something was amiss during the entire new blitzkrieg that happened several weeks back. Perhaps, some reporters from an otherwise impartial media have some explaining to do why his side wasn't reported as well.

Or maybe this is another PR stunt. In that case, only the Senate Journal can tell the truth.