Stop plagiarism

THE advent of the World Wide Web has given us a new kind of freedom – access to an almost bottomless amount of information. And the introduction of search engines, the most popular of which comes in the form of www.google.com, has provided us with the power to effortlessly sift through that ocean of data and fish out what we need. But as in other forms of freedom and power, there are entailed responsibilities.

How hard is it to give credit where it is due? Why not provide citation when using information that has been sourced from a website? This is one easy and simple enough responsibility that is asked of us netizens in this information age.

Unfortunately, many choose to just copy-and-paste information and brazenly present it as their own. It is not merely a case of laziness, but a matter of deceit and theft. Rampant plagiarism afflicts community journalism and segments of the academe here in Pangasinan. This form of corruption in two fundamental and influential sectors of our society needs to be addressed. No matter how technology has changed the world, the basic values of honesty and professionalism are still indispensable for the media, which is supposed to serve as a watchdog of government and guardian of public interest, and for our teachers, who are supposed to be the pillars of education.

The internet offers us the opportunity to find, read and utilize unlimited information. The resulting knowledge should serve to broaden our minds and mold us into less prejudiced global citizens, not breed a horde of shameless plagiarists.

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13 yes, 10 no

FROM the beginning, Juan Ponce Enrile was emphatic: The Impeachment Court (IC) trying Chief Justice Renato Corona “is a class of its own”, is separate from any other court, including the Supreme Court (SC). If so, why did Enrile and 12 other senator-judges of the IC heed the SC’s issuance of a TRO on the opening of Corona’s dollar accounts? Where is consistency there? The nation is confused.

Which is which?  Why the need for an IC when the SC can meddle into its affairs? The TRO came after prosecutors wanted to open Corona’s dollar deposits in pursuit of alleged ill-gotten wealth filed against the Chief Justice.

For the record, those siding with Enrile were Senators Estrada, Pimentel, Escudero, Recto, Marcos, Villar, Revilla, Arroyo, Legarda, Sotto, Santiago and Honasan.  The 10 ‘no’ votes were Senators Drilon, Osmena, Angara, Lacson, Pangilinan, Trillanes, Lapid, Pia Cayetano, Guingona and Alan Cayetano.

History will take care of them.

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