“Froth and Bubble”, “Toil and Trouble”

September 25, 2013

by Ms. Mike Portes

Plagiarism is personal to me, having been a victim myself, unfortunately many think plagiarism is a none issue.

Well sorry to say that, plagiarism has one big repercussion that should make each Filipino conscious and cautious about and it is losing our credibility and the respect of the international market. Fact is, we are already a dime a dozen abroad, and issues on credibility does affect our market value.

Just compare the contracts of other Third world nationals against that of our OFWs and see how short changed most of our kababayans are, and that’s just because of how we are currently being exported as cattle and nothing but cheap labor.  It is now up to the OFW to prove his worth. What happens when the branding of dishonesty is synonymous to our nationality, won’t that be an issue we should all be concerned about?

Let’s go beyond the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) which dictates that everything is copyright protected once a material hits a server therefore making individuals who copy and paste, improperly quote, or intentionally plagiarize online material financially liable for their actions.

What Mark Joseph Solis did is nothing new in my lifetime. He obviously took after our “beloved” politicians and public servants. We’ve seen this act so many times with our “leaders”, the only difference is that Solis got busted and being held accountable unlike with our politicians who don’t get busted or if they do get busted, they are never held accountable.

Let’s go beyond the plagiarism of Mark Joseph Solis and the manifestations of a victim psychology because fact is, being poor or hard up didn’t prevent any true achiever from attaining success and their goals.

Let’s just forget all that and just focus on the accessible opportunities to graduates of any of the country’s top calibre schools.

It appears that plagiarism has become in vogue within the very halls that are supposed to craft laws.The Senate reverberate with plagiarism, the most sensational of which was that of Sotto, that gave birth to the term “Sottoism”. Yesterday’s news it is but the stink permeates and latches on.

The stench is emanating from a culture of impunity, where even the revered of legal positions have become oblivious of fair game, recall when SC Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo got away with plagiarism, excused with “accidental removal of proper attributions”. Let’s not leave out Marcos, Gloria, Bolante, Garcia, Ligot; Our history is pock marked with the deplorable statistics on plunder cases.

Many times, I have written that the miasma is reeking from the very dysfunctions of our culture yet many are too deluded to see that the problem is when institutions are consumed with self-entitlement.

An “uno”, a title or an award, regardless of how it was attained, are given the highest premium.

Superficiality has been the norm, most have forgotten the essence of passion and service. Worse of all, we have forgotten our humanity and we only see commodity.

The indecency and the abuse of privilege has become a template for a people who would rather buy popularity than substance.

After 27 years after People Power and we have re-invented a nation on a house of cards.

What Mark Joseph Solis did, is nothing new in my lifetime. He obviously took after our “beloved” politicians and public servants. We’ve seen this act so many times with our “leaders”, the only difference is that Solis got busted and being held accountable unlike with our politicians who don’t get busted or if they do get busted, they are never held accountable.

Woe to high education, titles and awards when all are diminished to “froth and bubble”, when all that it has given back to a nation is power with expiration and achievement confined to applause. All “honor” devoid of the responsibility to uphold the greater good. The returns, all “toil and trouble”.

In my country, all are in want of change but only a scruple want to take part in the solution. Such is a people ingrossed with selfies than with immersion.

Blinded by the glitter, lured to the flames.

Ms. Mike Portes

Mike is the author of "Minsan may Isang Puta", an allegory which has been circulating since 2004 and with over 30,000 likes and shares in social media alone. It won a film grant in 2010 to be included in the multi-narrative Indie film "Ganap na Babae" (International title: Garden of Eve). The teaser, reviews and commentaries are here. The movie was honored as Cinemalaya 2010's opening film and has won international and local recognition. Mike's first sole authored book "The Dove Files", available at amazon.com endeavors to pay forward.The royalties from the initial 150 copies first went to a Project Malasakit scholar who graduated Cum Laude in April 2013, the rest was also paid forward to baby Mark who underwent a liver transplant in March 2013. The royalties from the succeeding prints of "The Dove Files", now go to a deserving Mangyan scholar who despite having been laughed at and nicked as "Taong-bundok", prevailed and recently graduated from High School.