The Power of an Apology

This is really quite ridiculous. A couple of months ago, the hot issue in the Philippines was the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill. I don't remember any other national issue being nearly as polarizing as this one. Most people lean heavily in one direction or the other, so much so that calm, respectful, objective discussion and finding some sort of middle ground are nearly impossible. Things have gotten ugly over this.

Members of the government are no exception, and here begins a tale that is much longer than it needs to be. Senator Tito Sotto is staunchly against the RH Bill. He has his reasons, and I won't go into what they are or whether they are valid or otherwise. (For that matter, I won't go into my own stand on the bill.) What's important is that he made an impassioned speech about it during Senate deliberations, and it was discovered that his speech contained material copied, word for word, from a blog post, which he did not credit as his source.

In response to accusations of plagiarism, Sotto at first denied that he took the material from elsewhere. Later, he admitted that he did take the material from said blog but maintained that he did not plagiarize, because blogs are not covered by copyright. This enraged everyone, most especially bloggers and writers, whose intellectual property rights have basically just been snubbed by one of the country's lawmakers.

The good senator, in response to this public outcry, gave a couple more speeches over the course of the Senate talks on the bill, again taking material from other sources (a few more blogs plus a speech by the late Robert F. Kennedy)--again quoted verbatim, without attribution. He continued to insist that taking from blogs isn't plagiarism. As for Kennedy's speech, Sotto claims not to have plagiarized that either. You silly people, you thought you had me, but Kennedy's speech was in English, and mine was in Tagalog, and even if my speech contained a translation that was as direct and exact as it gets, I still did not plagiarize because obviously, Kennedy's speech and mine are in two different languages.

I mean... was this a joke? Was this his way of being cheeky and sticking it to the people? Or--and this is kind of a scary thought, considering this guy makes decisions on behalf of an entire nation--was this really, truly, actually  the product of his logic?

Needless to say, citizens were outraged and indignant, and Sotto instantly rose to Internet infamy and became everyone's current favorite object of ridicule, contempt, hate, etc. News articles, blog posts, statuses (stati?), memes, and comments criticizing him, making fun of him, and lambasting him flooded the Internet.

I kind of felt bad for him. Yes, what he did was wrong, and yes, he should've just admitted it and apologized, and no, he definitely shouldn't have done it again, which it seems he did on purpose, just to piss people off. And yes, people have the right to speak up against what he did because we have to fight for our rights and fight for what's right and not tolerate less-than-upstanding behavior from the people who run our country. (I just used "right" 3 times and "fight" twice in the same sentence; I think my inner activist has been unleashed.) Still, Sotto is a person, with a life and a family and feelings and a sense of self-worth that takes a beating when people criticize him, and a lot of what was being said and posted on the Internet was just downright mean. Rather than rationally, intelligently dealing with the issue and criticizing Sotto's actions (which some people did--kudos to them), a lot of people simply ridiculed him, cursed him, called him names, spat venomous words directed at him, belittled him. Yes, he sort of brought it upon himself, but no one deserves to be treated without basic human respect.

Sotto thought so too, and he found a way to stop people from saying bad things about him ever again: Right before the brand-new Cybercrime Prevention Act was signed into law, the sneaky senator inserted a last-minute provision on libel, whereby absolutely anything that anyone says or posts on the Internet that is interpreted as malicious can land the person in jail for up to 12 years--posing a great threat to freedom of speech/expression. (How this last-minute add-on made it past all senators [except one, who voted against the act] and the president of the Philippines, who signed it into law, is unthinkable, but that is another musing for another time.)

So now, the entire Internet (the Philippine portion of it, at least, although the issue is starting to get international attention from the media and organizations such as the UN) is again up in arms, protesting against a potentially repressive law and the government officials responsible--foremost among whom is Sotto. In so few months, this guy has turned himself into an object of ridicule, a caricature of an idiot politician, an object of hate, a villain, an enemy of freedom.

The shitstorm goes beyond just Sotto. The other senators and people in government are scrambling to react. Some have been caught embarrassed and have had to admit to not thoroughly reading and studying the act before voting for it. Some claim no responsibility, pointing the finger at those who actually penned the law, or those who should have questioned it but didn't. Some are standing their ground, saying that citizens have nothing to be afraid of if they are doing nothing wrong. Some are realizing that this provides a golden opportunity for them, and they have swayed over to the side of the people, hoping to win their sympathy, their allegiance, their votes. I wonder what all this looks like from the outside. A silly, minor blunder bound to right itself in time? A potentially troublesome political situation to keep an eye on? A sign of serious government incompetence and the beginnings of political unrest, warning investors to stay the hell away? All I know is what it looks like from the inside, and it's a bit of a mess.

The thing is, all this probably could have been avoided, if only Sotto had, after the first instance/accusation of plagiarism, simply admitted he was wrong, apologized, and promised not to do it again. It's the most basic lesson in human behavior, one of the first things we are taught by our parents: if you screw up, tell the truth, say sorry, and don't do it again. Had he just done that, all the Internet buzz about him would have died out quickly, and he wouldn't have felt so bullied that he needed to sneak a libel clause into the Cybercrime Prevention Act, and our government wouldn't be scrambling to save face over this, and people wouldn't be up in arms to fight against repression. And maybe by now we'd have made some progress regarding the RH Bill--which, although quickly forgotten and overshadowed by this whole Sotto saga, is what might have started it all in the first place.