Unforgivable

The Supreme Court (SC) decision on a case of plagiarism involving one of its own has triggered waves of protest across the legal and academic community, which said the High Court's stand and consequent show cause order to UP law professors may send the wrong signal to teachers and students.

"It's either a case of outright plagiarism or a case of outright carelessness, which is equally unforgivable in this particular case," UP College of Law Prof. Ibarra Gutierrez told ANC’s The Rundown on Friday.

"Justice [Maria Lourdes] Sereno raised the point in her dissenting opinion to the show cause order. Essentially, what the Supreme Court did was add to the requirements as to when a person can be deemed to have committed plagiarism, and the requirement they added was the presence of malicious intent to pass off another's work as one's own. The problem with that characterization is that now, even if you can demonstrate there was clear, verbatim, word for word lifting of passages belonging to another work without attribution, quotation, that will not be enough to convict a person of plagiarism,” he explained.

"There were no less than 23 instances of word for word reproduction of the work of 3 legal scholars from abroad, even copying the footnotes. It defies imagination how that can be construed as inadvertence. It opens the floodgates towards other persons engaged in academic work from making the same claim," Gutierrez said.

Online petition to support faculty launched

An online petition seeking support for the UP College of Law faculty has been initiated. It says:

"We are proud alumni of the University of the Philippines College of Law, who have been taught well by our teachers not to pass off the work of others as ours. In the University, intellectual achievement is so important that claiming credit for someone else’s idea or creation is one of the most serious offenses that one could commit.

"We are members of a profession that believes in the importance of the freedom of speech. We believe that the sub judice rule should never be used to stifle public discussion or to prohibit public exercise of the constitutional right to free speech. The courts should allow and never intervene in the free discussion of views by the public at large on various aspects of an ongoing trial, no matter how potentially socially volatile the issues may be.

"We are lawyers and law graduates who, as professionals, make it a point to cite our sources whenever an idea is not originally ours. Contrary to the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, we are not being hypocrites when we expect nothing less from the Court. Its members are supposed to set the standards of honesty, honor, integrity, and competence; we are supposed to look up to them as our examples, and anything short of that diminishes their credibility.

"We are making this statement to express our full support for the faculty of the UP College of Law. We feel personally aggrieved by the show-cause order issued by the Court against them because it runs contrary to everything that the law stands for. It concerns us because it concerns the honor, integrity, and competence of the members of the judiciary, whom we are supposed to emulate.

"We are appalled by the turn of events—that the perpetrators/plagiarists are being absolved, while those who simply made a stand are the ones that stand to be penalized. Is this what has become of our judicial system?”

Support in Facebook page

A separate campaign, "I support the UP College of Law Faculty," has generated more than 2,600 likes, with expressions of support from many citizens.

(Editor's note: The first version of this article mistakenly said that the online petition mentioned in the previous paragphs is the same as the "I support the UP College of Law Faculty" campaign on Facebook. It was a mistake by the editor, not the writer. Our apologies.)

Cruzette P. Dela Cruz said: "i support this site, it's a sad day for lady justice when one is given a legal right to plagiarize unless the accuser can prove 'malicious intent'."

Pistong Melliza said: "The SC missed a rare opportunity to cleanse it tarnished image by weeding it of members who have been exposed for plagiarism. Instead, the High Court threatens, well just like GMA has done, the whistle blowers, not the real culprits."

Emmanuel San Andres wrote, "Lawyers and scholars of the world, unite!"

No prejudgment vs. law professors

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court spokesman has insisted there is no prejudgment against 37 UP law professors whom it has ordered to show cause for saying Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo should be punished for alleged plagiarism.

Speaking on ANC's "The Rundown" also on Friday, Supreme Court administrator and spokesman Midas Marquez said it was not possible for the High Court to have prejudged the professors or they would not have been given the chance to explain their side.

The High Court has asked the UP professors to explain why they should not be sanctioned for issuing the statement pending hearings on the case before the ethics committee.

"Statements were given to the media while the ethics was conducting its hearing. There is a provision in the code of professional responsibility that lawyers should not issue public statements regarding pending cases which can arouse public opinion for or against a particular party. The ethics committee has submitted its recommendation to the court, that's why the court came out with this resolution. If there would be any motion for reconsideration, it should be addressed to the Court in its decision to absolve Justice del Castillo."

But, Marquez said the lengthy show cause order is intended to serve as a guide for the professors to know how to respond. He, however, added that sanctions would not be forthcoming if there is no violation of the legal code to speak of.

"The Court is only issuing a resolution directing the UP professors to show cause why they shouldn't be sanctioned for violation of certain provisions of the code of professional responsibility. There is no sanction yet. They're being given an opportunity to present their side. If they are able to present their side and there is no violation and the court sees merit to that explanation, then there may be no sanction after all. If there's an indiscretion, it will depend on how they would explain themselves and the gravity if there was transgression."

"While many won't agree with the decision, it will have to be respected," Marquez added.

"The Supreme Court has said plagiarism needs to show intent and says, in this particular case, they did not see any intent on the part of Justice del Castillo or even the researcher. The ponencia is 35 pages long, with almost 80 citations. That alone shows there was every intention to cite authors. It does not make sense to intentionally omit attribution of 3 authors when it cites an abundance of other sources," Marquez explained. "If at all, the failure to mention these authors was a result of inadvertence or pure oversight."

Show cause unnecessary

University of the East College of Law Dean Amado Valdez believes the show cause order is unnecessary. While it was not necessarily considered a judgment, he added it may give the impression the High Court was already passing judgment against the UP professors.

"There's already a telling effect on lawyers, that's why there's a kind of fallout from some sectors of the legal community on the action of the Supreme court in calling to task the UP professors to explain or show cause order on the steps they took," Valdez said.

"As far as we lawyers are concerned, when we receive a show cause, it would cause us sleepless nights," he said. "That in itself would already be punishment. While it is the prerogative of the Supreme Court to ask the UP law professors to explain, I also believe there's nothing wrong with the UP professors making a stand on what they perceive is an act which they think does not speak well of the justices of the Supreme Court."

Dean Valdez added the UP professors had every right as academics to issue an opinion on the matter.

"Although I accept the findings of the committee about the fact that perhaps there was an accident in the failure to attribute the authorship of the comment made in that decision, from an academic standpoint, that could have ended the matter because I believe the UP professors or any other lawyer for that matter has the right to make that kind of commentary specially coming from the academe," Valdez said. "Action can be considered part of their advocacy and it does not trample upon the reputation of the SC."

University of the Philippines College of Law Prof. Ibarra Gutierrez pointed to the "unusual" way the show cause order was framed.

"While it is gratifying to hear Atty. Marquez say there is no prejudgment and this is a show cause order and that the faculty will be given ample opportunity to answer, I find the phraseology and actual format of the show cause order somewhat strange," Gutierrez said, citing how the 7-page-long show cause order included a list of professors, discussed the conduct of faculty members in issuing the statement, and a detailed enumeration of the canons that were violated.

"It's the longest show cause order I've seen," Gutierrez said. "There was in fact some kind of finding already made by the Supreme Court. That's why we're worried in the UP faculty that there was already an opinion reached by the Court on this matter. After all, 10 out of 15 justices of the court signed on to the 7-page opinion. It's strange that a show cause order will already have dissenting opinions."

Three justices issued dissenting opinions. Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales had called it "nothing but an abrasive flexing of the judicial muscle that can hardly be characterized as judicious."

Sense of duty

Despite a pending the case before the ethics committee, Gutierrez believes there was nothing reckless about the professors' statement, which was done in the interest of legal opinion and their academic duty.

"We can't allow something this serious to pass without comment. The allegations of plagiarism and intellectual dishonesty contained in the Vinuya ponencia were very serious and would have grave implications not only on the concept of plagiarism and intellectual integrity insofar as writing legal opinions are concerned but also on the integrity of the Supreme Court as an institution," he said.

Gutierrez, who was not among the 37 faculty members who signed the statement transmitted to the Supreme Court, said it will be difficult for the faculty to ignore the show cause order. He added that 5 deans and 4 past deans, including senior faculty members, a substantial portion of full-time faculty, had signed on, and even members of the regular faculty, including those who didn't sign, agreed with most of the points raised in the statement.

"They weren't relieved to have a full-blown opinion. In fact, they were bothered and worried by the fact, in the show cause order there was already a discussion of the liability, [of] what they were supposed to have violated, which was indicative of a mindset already adopted by the majority," he said.

Gutierrez said they stand by their position and are prepared to take the consequences of their action.

"We feel we discharged our duty here and welcome the opportunity this incident has given us to further discuss the more important issue in this entire affair, which is the issue of plagiarism, intellectual honesty and the implications of these practices on the integrity of the Supreme Court as an institution. That was our intention for raising this, and if the price for generating public interest on this key issue and hopefully moving towards a better resolution of this matter is a citation for contempt or a show cause order, then it's a price the faculty of the College of Law will gladly pay."

Dean Valdez said the incident paves the way for a more exhaustive discussion on the role and responsibility of researchers given the growing demand for judicial decisions.

"This development is welcome. It will tell the court what would be the role researchers should follow because of the number of cases where justices can no longer cope with constitutional deadlines. In resolving cases, we are now starting to be dependent on researchers to be able to come up with prompt decisions, and this is perhaps why the researcher in the case of Justice del Castillo had the luxury of having quoted this kind of decisions or writing abroad to support the decision."