I condemn plagiarists

I am FULLY aware that there are no laws covering plagiarism in blogs, BUT please, if you are going to copy words from this post and paste it somewhere else, it would be very SIMPLE to add "taken from passionsavessoul.blogspot.com." 

Because to us writers, copy-pasting verbatim without citing the source is a sinful act equivalent to plagiarism! And I don't f*cking care if this is JUST a blog and there are no law that copyrights my blog, BUT these are my words and I shed thinking and effort formulating these. 

So please. Cite me. Because there is a thing we call ethics. It exists with or without the law because it's a moral thing. If that is too much for you to handle, then at least show a little courtesy, or wait! Better yet, RESPECT to the writer, or even the blogger. 

So that's my message to you Atty. Hector A. Villacorta, the chief of Sen. Tito Sotto's staff, partly responsible for copy-pasting Sarah Pope's blog. You are too full of yourself. You make it appear as if it's very much OK to copy and paste someone else's words without giving him/her credit. 

You know law and whatever, but you do not know your morals and values.

***

The topic is very sensitive to me, of course, being a writer (blogger and a full-time journalist). 

But, I just can't take it how Sen. Sotto and his staff had acted upon the revelation of the copy-pasting they did. OK, for the benefit of the law, I will not call it plagiarism. They're only lucky the thing they copy-pasted was not printed or copyrighted. 

When I was just in college (I finished Journalism from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines), it was already made clear to me NEVER to plagiarize. We were thought to paraphrase. If we'll directly quote, then cite the source. 

Now, writing for a newspaper, I practice what I learned from college, not just because my editors will kill me. But also because, I know, it is the right thing to do. 

Citing sources is an old practice in writing for print. And plagiarism is a taboo. 

What, because the world is advancing, the technology quickly changing, and the Internet making everything available to everyone, we are allowed to skip this na? 

Well. That. Is. Not. An. Excuse.

P.S. I do know that there are plenty of bloggers, who ONLY copy-paste press releases, and don't actually write. Yon, pwede mo ikalat and i-share all you want. 

But this matter is a completely different story. It's always different when it's something you personally wrote. Always. It's like a child. You treasure it.