First, let me extend a very warm welcome to the many new Filipino readers that have discovered this blog in the past 24 hours. My husband is from Australia, so I do get down to that part of the world on occasion and I hope to visit your beautiful country at some point in the future.
It is great to have you here, although the circumstances of our meeting are, to say the least, unusual.
It seems one of your esteemed Senators, Tito Sotto, plagiarized a blog post I wrote on February 23, 2011 entitled How The Pill Can Harm Your Future Child’s Health, lifting entire sections of the article basically word for word that was delivered in a speech to the Senate Floor regarding the possible passage of the highly controversial Reproductive Health Bill.
What’s worse, Senator Sotto is denying the charge of plagiarism, saying in an interview with ABS-CBN:
“Why would I quote the blogger? I was quoting Natasha McBride.”
Nice touch Senator. Â You almost had me convinced you were a nice guy with the tears and all.
Many of your citizens have emailed me assuring me that was a put on, and I’m starting to think they are right.
A thief is a thief, Mr. Senator. Â Denying it doesn’t get you off the hook; it just makes you a lying thief.
On the bright side, I am thrilled that your lapse of moral judgment has brought much-needed attention to the fact that the birth control pill can have devastating consequences to a woman’s long term health and possibly those of her children and even grandchildren.  Gut dysbiosis is a serious condition that has multi-generational consequences that women need to be educated about and completely aware of before making the very personal decision to use them.
It was indeed brave of you to take this controversial position. Â Kudos to you for that.
By the way, I am truly sorry for the loss of your son.
As the mother of two sons myself, I can only imagine the pain and devastation you have felt from such an experience.
While this has been a highly charged and hopefully enlightening experience for all involved, it’s time now to set the drama aside and get back to fighting the good fight by continuing to educate people about how their food and pharma choices affect not only themselves but also those they dearly love.
And although my attorney will likely try to persuade me otherwise, for now I’m moving on as I’ve got work to do.
Women of the Philippines: I am terribly sorry my blog was used and twisted against you. You deserve the choice to use The Pill if you want or need to based on your particular circumstances. While I want you to know that this choice has health consequences as does the decision to use any pharmaceutical drug, I in no way would ever condone taking this choice away from you! Â Mabuhay!
OMG! I really apologize that one of our senator has done such crime. plagiarism is a crime, and he’s a law-maker, how could he have done. you’re absolutely right a thief is a thief. i never voted for him. i will share your blog, and post a status on my facebook and tweet about how liar he is.
just me,
http://www.phioxee.com
http://phioxeeAwareness.blogspot.com
You are very graceful Sarah. I am a Filipina and your message made me cry. We need people like you here in the Phils. God bless you and your kind soul. May you live long and prosper.
It seems one of your ESTEEMED senators…
You got that part wrong lol
…and don’t forget sotto’s Thief-of-Staff (Atty. Copy P. Villacorta)! It’s also fun in the Senate!
RosalindaL, SHAME ON YOU IF YOU ARE A FILIPINO!!! WE FILIPINOS MIGHT NOT ALL SPEAK ENGLISH, BUT WE MAKE IT A POINT TO STUDY ENGLISH BEFORE SPEAKING.
otherwise…
RosalindaL, have shame on yourself if you are not a Filipino and if you dont have an idea how “high” the system of education is here in my country. Other asian nationalities are swarming towards the Philippines for what? Simply for VERY COMPETITIVE COLLEGE DEGREE and for a simple fact THAT WE FILIPINOS SPEAK ENGLISH FLUENTLY MOST OF THE TIMES, EVEN BETTER THAT MANY “ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES” AS THEY CLAIM IT TO BE!
sorry, my apologies. I being an educator and a book author (both for Mathematics disciplines) just cannot stand the fact that this RosalindaL exist. more so, i cannot believe that, while im having hard time processing contents of every material i make for my students, people on higher seats of the Philippine Politics are taking it lightly to plagiarize someone else’s work. may it be a book or a blog, if its not for the blog, the book will not be discovered (by the culprits) or should i say, they only have the chance of knowing the book because the name of the author is mentioned in the part of the blog being lifted?
Hi Sarah again Im very very very very sorry. Believe me we believe in you more than our stupid senator. Anyway thank you for a wonderful site. Ive learned a lot reading your posts
Is Atty. Hector Villacorta the same person who was once and Editor of the UST Law Review?
Hi there, Ms. Sarah..
Please sue this actor in our Senate.. You’d be doing the Filipinos a favor if you would. As a matter of fact, he is challenging you to sue him.. read it here
Grrrr….people, people, people. Really? You want Sarah to sue because of your opinion? Shame on you! The topic here is PLAGIARISM. Don’t freaking post something about suing the senator because of his lies about the pill. That’s your issue NOT SARAH’S. And guys, have respect. This post was published to inform about the act. I’m an RH-bill supporter but to “rally behind Sarah” is not a good way to express your plea. It seems that many of the people who made comments want to use Sarah’s issue as a weapon. And for people who thinks Sarah is wrong, mind your words. We have this something called “RESPECT”. Not everyone knows what you know. And to that person who said that ALL WOMEN HAVE ACCESS TO INFORMATION ABOUT REPRODUCTION….well, have the women in the mountains set their own internet connection. As a Filipino citizen, you know how difficult it is to inform each women about reproduction. Maybe try going up there and tell them – in layman’s terms – about it. Go ahead.
Even the poorest provinces have 7-11s and mini stops. They all sell contraceptives. I have relatives from the poorest provinces and parts of the Philippines. They have no problem accessing all sorts of contraceptives. Contraceptives is available everywhere in the Philippines. The issue is the government forcing families to reduce the number of kids, supposedly as a solution to poverty. That is real purpose of the RH bill. It is supposed to address poverty. How? By ramming down condoms and pills down people’s throat.
If you truly want to provide for the poor, how about this? Give them the money, let them chose whether to use it to buy contraceptives or food. That way, the people TRULY have a choice.
Now that part is sensible. I never would have thought it would come from you. 🙂 🙂 🙂
You are a little funny. I give you that. 😀 Now, give me some sensible ideas hehe joke joke
food or contraceptives? wheres the choice in that? both are needs. but one will always choose food. this to the detriment of their health and quality of living.
you know how to enable people exercise free choice? present them with these options: abstinence (free), the calendar method (free), contraception (government-funded through RH Bill and therefore free). the people can then align their choices depending on their needs, circumstances, religious beliefs, etc. add to that, educate the people of the pros and cons of each option, through sex education, also promoted by the rh bill. NOW THAT’S FREE AND INFORMED CHOICE.
btw,
the rh bill will not “ram down condoms and pills down people’s throat” nor will it “force families to reduce the number of kids.” it only makes available REAL ACCESS to reproductive health options. and that DOES NOT MERELY MEAN MAKING THEM AVAILABLE IN THE MARKET. real access means making these options READILY OBTAINABLE AT THE LEAST COST, IF NOT FOR NO COST AT ALL. so u can still have as many kids as you want. as long as when you choose not to have kids, then you can do so, and lack of money will no longer be a reason for your failure to do so.
Your argument is precisely an admission that the RH Bill will result inefficient use of scarce resources. By saying that food will always be chosen to contraceptives, you basically admit that food Pareto dominates contraceptives when it comes to utilizing scarce resources. But at the same time, you want to constrain the poor from using the money to buy food instead of condoms.
Why engage in a constrained choice set? Why not open the choice to, say, (a) $amount for condoms, (b) $amount for pills (c) abstinence, use the $amount for food, or additional education expenses for junior, (d) etc., etc. By constraining the choice set to (a) or (b), the government is preventing the people from using the scarce taxpayers’ money to the government’s fiat, instead of decentralizing decision making by the individual economic agents, which is the essence of laissez faire, the invisible hand (Adam Smith) and the market economy. The government should not decide for the people that they ought to use condoms or contraceptives. The government cannot decide that x amount of children in inefficient and will translate to poverty. The essence of decentralized decision making is letting free people decide how many children they want to have, free from centraiized planning by the government that says such and such amount of children is inefficient, and therefore you should have less.
If the people want to use the money to buy food instead of contraceptives, do not prevent them from doing so. That is the essence of free will and free choice. By allocating the scare resources specifically to condoms and pills, that government effectively makes the decision for the people that the money is better off utilized to contraceptives rather than to, say food.
My argument is let the people have unconstrained choice with regard to the money, instead of government making the decision for them that the money better be used for contraceptives. That, my friend, is the essence of opportunity cost.
In short, we are not in a communist country. The government should not decide that such scarces resource are better off allocated specifically for contraceptives instead of food. The government should not decide that the poor should not have as much children. It is the people’s right to decide how many children they want to have, and not as the government deems that their children are simply too many.
@rico
i agree with you
my neighbors here in Baseco Port Area have money for cigarettes, liquor, tong-its, bingo, high-alai, sakla, etc.
if they can afford those things, it means that they can also afford to buy pills and condoms for their sexual pleasures.
and of course, there are also couples who really can’t afford contraceptives
but these pills and condoms are freely available in public health centers
they just have to visit and ask for their free supplies
may I also add that majority of teenage pregnancy cases here are because of incest or rape
I think contraceptives will NOT help prevent abuse against women
it may even make it worse
instead of contraceptives, I think that it’s best if we spend the funds for livelihood projects or college scholarships
Thanks, blogger.
Again…the word is INFORMATION. That also means telling women they have a choice about bearing children. Even if you have your own stock of condoms and pills in your store, many of the women won’t care. What they have to know is the after-effects of bearing too many children. Or bearing a child they know would endanger their lives. The point here is information. Information that they have a choice not the information that their stores sell condoms and pills.
@maxene
i see your good intention
but i think that you are underestimating the knowledge of the poor people
we are not bobo and ignorant just like what the media wants to portray
most (if not all) of my neighbors are already aware about condoms and pills
and they know how to use those stuff
i hear the mothers talking about it
the real issue here is whether the government should finance contraceptives or not
and for me, the answer is NO
my neighbors always set aside 10 or 20 pesos for “easy 2” or “lotto”
if they can do that, then they can also pay for their own contraceptives
they just have to use their finances wisely
what the government must do is to intensify the importance of family planning by conducting seminars in neighborhoods. But funding billions of pesos for pills and condoms is not necessary.
also, the reason why I am suggesting to use the funds for college scholarship is because poor women tend to start a family at a very young age.
after high school, they don’t know what to do with their lives
either they get a job (which is difficult) or they marry too young
instead of giving the poor women the option to use contraceptives, why don’t we give them a chance to get a degree and become professionals? in that way, they will become productive citizens not parasites who rely on the gov’t for free pills and condoms.
Oh please, Maxine, as a fellow RH bill supporter, you and I know that it has always been about the RH bill. If a pro-RH personality plagiarized Sarah’s blog, we wouldn’t have made a noise. And it was good for our cause that Sotto plagiarized, because that gives us winning edge. And the important thing is to win, to be able to get that RH bill passed, so that contraception, which is already legal anyway, can be accessible to everybody. It doesn’t matter what Sarah believes in, because what is going viral right now is that she is a staunch pro-RH advocate. And for as long as Sarah does not give a definite statement that she does not support for the passing of the bill, the internet, and the many photoshopped pictures of her, tell everyone that she is for the passing of the bill, that she is for the greater accessibility to and high usage of contraception. Plagiarism made us move forward in the battle. Encouraging Sarah to sue Sotto will make us move another. The goal is to pass the bill, no matter what, because access to contraceptives, which Sotto and the Catholic Church reject, is the most important goal. So, do get off your moral high horse, fellow pro-RH. This is all about the RH bill. No more, no less. Stop pretending it’s not.
Ana,
Why do I have this feelings that you are actually anti- RH. I dont like how you are setting the mindset of readers that all pro-RH have the same vision as yours. I dont agree that Sarah made it look Tito Sotto like a bad guy. Sarah did not do that act. She didnt have to do that as it’s Sotto himself who made his own grave.
And oh! That comment was for your other post btw! For this one, please! I still believe most people here are still thinking wisely to know that you are actually doing “reverse psychology” thus, making pro-RH guys look like antagonist.
Hahaha Majo.. my thoughts exactly… I smell sabotage! hahahaha
On the contrary, contraceptives are restricted in Manila. Health centers are not allowed to carry them to give to the poor. And a baranggay in Alabang IINM tried to further reduce access to contraceptives by trying to require people to have prescriptions before they can buy them.
So, no. Contraceptives are not that free in the Philippines. Not to the poor, as Atienza has done, and if the “Pro-Lifers” can have their way, not to those who can afford.
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/213863/news/nation/barangay-ayala-alabang-requires-prescription-to-buy-condoms
So Ana, this is an admission that you would use another issue to get to your goal. That it’s alright to fight for what you believe in by using someone? And please never assume I think the same way you are. So don’t say I am pretending. For what I see, you are trying to say you have the same thoughts as anyone. I am going to fight for the bill not through this. Be open minded. Anybody may be anti- or pro- the bill but he or she may have a different way of ways on how they would want to fight for it. If for you, we can pass the bill through this, fine. I don’t blame you. But don’t freaking tell me to get off my moral horse because we don’t think the same way.
I don’t know about the others, but I want Sarah to sue Sotto because:
1. it would set an example that plagiarism (and other kinds of intellectual property/copyright infringement) is WRONG. I’ve lived in several countries (including the Philippines) and the attitude towards these things in the Philippines is extremely lax. Sotto’s copy pasting is NOT new. Remember Manny Pangilinan’s plagiarized speech at the Ateneo graduation? How about Supreme Court Justice Mariano del Castillo, who plagiarized at least 20 times and blamed Microsoft Word for his error? EMBARRASSING! We Filipinos have to learn that this kind of thing is NOT ACCEPTABLE. So we want to be world class? We want to be known for our intellectual capital? Then we have to learn that these kinds of things are NOT cool.
2. To prove that politicians are not above the law.
Whew….now, this is the post that really focused on the issue…though, I apologize for also commenting about the RH Bill because I can’t help it. But I found this post the most direct and most related post for the real issue here.