Fr. Greg Bañaga, CM
MANILA, Nov. 12, 2012—With mounting ethics complaint against a Philippine Senator for using materials without proper attribution, administrators of Catholic Schools reiterated their policy against plagiarism, saying it is a brazen form of “injustice” that their don’t tolerate.
Fr. Gregorio Bañaga, C.M. of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) warned students that software that detect plagiarism are now available in the market to aid teachers in evaluating the originality of their students’ academic work.
“We remind out students, especially in this ‘copy-paste’ era, where they simply go to the internet to get information they need but do not acknowledge their sources, that there are now software available to detect plagiarism,” he said.
“That’s why attribute as a matter of justice because when you plagiarize, you are doing injustice by claiming somebody else’s work as your own,” Bañaga added.
Unjust and lazy
The president of Adamson University in Manila said people who commit plagiarism are generally lazy and without integrity.
“Those who plagiarize are not just persons. They are without integrity because they copy something and attribute it to themselves. These persons are also lazy persons because instead of doing the research himself and articulate his thoughts, he just borrows other’s idea and don’t even acknowledge the source of the information,” he said.
This is why Bañaga said CEAP encourages its 1,345 member-schools to promote the culture of attribution among their students.
“Students should do their research work. If it becomes your original work, nobody should copy or use it without your permission. But should you feel the need to cite somebody else’s work, attribute your source as a matter of justice,” he added.
Ethics
Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto III is once again in hot waters after at least 30 faculty members of the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, and De La Salle University have signed an ethics complaint against him for plagiarism.
The ethics complaint will be filed before the Senate Ethics and Privileges Committee tomorrow. The complaint reportedly cites nine instances where Sotto used online materials without proper attribution during his “Torno en Contra” speech against the Reproductive Health (RH) bill. (YouthPinoy)
