After writing my post yesterday morning on the possibility that an article that appeared on the DOT website was plagiarized from a post on marketmanila.com published several years ago, I was pleased to receive the following response from Atty. Kaw of the Department of Tourism:
Dear Mr. (Marketman),
Thank you for your email to Secretary Mon Jimenez regarding the issue of plagiarism of your blog in the DOT website. I have been tasked by the Secretary to investigate your complaint and I have already started looking into this matter. We appreciate your bringing this to our attention especially as the content or article was posted on the DOT website in 2008 and this is the first time that Secretary Jimenez has been informed of the same.
In my initial queries with our website developer, I have been informed that the article is no longer in the DOT website and has already been taken down as early as 2 years ago. I was further informed by our website administrator that the link to the article indicated in your email below is sourced or what remains from the server and no longer from the DOT website itself. Nonetheless, rest assured that we will get to the bottom of this and resolve this matter without delay.
On behalf of DOT, and even if it happened in 2008 and not during the term now of Secretary Mon Jimenez, we apologize to you and your readers for any inconvenience that the incident may have caused.
Thank you and best regards.
Very truly yours,
Atty. EUGENE T. KAW
Chief of Staff
Office of the Secretary
Department of Tourism
Atty. Kaw was responsive and appeared cognizant of the germane issues and was preparing look into the matter more fully. I would have been more than happy to wait a reasonable time until receiving his comprehensive response. I didn’t write any other posts, I didn’t even post any further comments, and even deleted parts of reader comments that might be potentially problematic. In other words, I had no desire to “fan the flames” in any sort of way. Period. Then I opened my emails early this evening and these are the emails exchanged:
I received the following email from Mulong Maturingan from GMA News TV that was sent at 3:09pm, and which I opened at 6:30pm:
DOT plagiarism
Hi this is Mulong of GMA News. We are doing a story about your post in your blog about the alleged Plagiarism again of the Department of Tourism. I hope you can find time to contact me thru email or with my mobile number (0917xxxxxx). We would be glad to air your side as we are coordinating with the DOT to get theirs on this matter.
Thank you very much!
Mulong Maturingan
I responded with this email, sent at 6:34pm (or 23 minutes AFTER GMA News posted their article on-line, and therefore, my response could not have been a part of that article in any way, nor had I read the article online):
Hi mulong,
Thanks for your email. Actually, my post details the concern about the plagiarism. The post has received a comment from Atty. Kaw of the DOT and they are looking into the issue and I await their answer. No one has denied the plagiarism, just that they are looking into it. From what I understand, the page has been removed, but even if the page had remained published for 1 day, not 1 year or 3 years, there is still the issue that the contents of the page may have included stolen intellectual property.
I have written about plagiarism before, as well as stolen photos, so this is an issue with broader ramifications, not just limited to the DOT. If institutions, private and public, are not vigilant and adamant about the integrity of their materials, they lose credibility. And since the DOT has already been caught up in a similar incident before, it is surprising that another one would crop up shortly thereafter.
At this point, I am most curious about the supposed writer, and whoever at the DOT was responsible for vetting and approving the article in question, and agreeing to its publication.
Sincerely,
Marketman
I received an email response from Mr. Maturingan sent at 7:27pm, but which I opened at roughly 9:40pm:
I appreciate your response Sir. To discuss the issue/matter further, would you be available for an on cam interview?
And I sent this response to Mr. Maturingan at just after 10:00pm:
Hi mulong,
I am in Cebu at the moment, so that wouldn’t be possible. Thank you for asking, but I don’t think this issue warrants that type of attention. I just want to find out who is responsible, who is accountable and what will be done to rectify the possible plagiarism. “Test page” or not, the material appears to be stolen from my blog, it WAS published, even for a minute, on the world wide web. It was recorded in the cache and was searchable on google and other search engines. It was available to readers for the last three years as a result of the DOT test. It was only expunged or cleared today, which means it could have been cleared when the test was over, but DOT tech staff didn’t bother to do it. It clearly appeared on a site identified with the DOT, and the screen shot proves it. My readers were able to access it for much of the day today. I was more than willing to quietly wait for Atty. Kaw’s response after a thorough investigation, but I see that others at the DOT are already willing to speak up and be quoted. So I will probably write another post tonight as a response.
Many thanks.
Marketman
Then, I finally sat down to read this item that appeared on GMANews on-line at 6:11 pm, and these are excerpts quoted from that story:
An official from the Department of Tourism (DOT) said Wednesday that the supposedly “plagiarized” article on Filipino food posted on the government agency’s website has long been taken down.
June Garduque, officer-in-charge of the DOT Information Technology division, said the write-up, supposedly copied word for word from food blog MarketManila.com, was only posted online as part of test runs conducted by the department while developing the website in 2008 in coordination with a private firm.
Just a test page
Garduque said that the post was just a “test” page meant to help the website’s developers assess the layout and overall look of the page itself. As such, it was not meant for public consumption and was promptly deleted.
“Test page iyon at hindi final. During the final run, inalis na namin iyon. Nagkataon lang siguro na narecover from search engines. Alam naming hindi iyon validated kaya dinelete na namin iyon,” he said in a phone interview.
He likewise said that the department makes sure that articles posted on its site are originally written by its employees.
“Hindi kami nagpe-plagiarize. Hindi kami naglalagay ng information na hindi galing sa amin. We are very mindful of our content,” he said.
So here are my questions or concerns, based on Mr. Garduque’s quoted responses in the GMANews article:
“TEST PAGE” — Mr./Ms. (gender unclear from article) Garduque’s assertion that the article was merely a “test page” is frankly, lame and irrelevant. The issue is whether the article was ever written at all, by a person tagged as trinadelros, and whether the article was ever published and viewable by the public. In fact, even if it wasn’t viewable by the public, it would still have technically been plagiarized if the contents were lifted from marketmanila.com and made to appear to be the work of someone else. The known facts are that the page, regardless of it being a test or not, WAS PUBLISHED ON THE NET, and despite protestations that it had since been taken down, IT REMAINED VIEWABLE AS A DISTINCT PAGE THAT COULD BE LOCATED THROUGH SEARCH ENGINES. The page had no indication that it was a “TEST PAGE” it had no indication that it had since been removed, and it clearly appeared under the DOT banner, in a page very similar to the DOT’s current website. Mr./Ms. Garduque has not DENIED that the page was written, has not DENIED that it was under the byline of a Ms. trinadelros, has not DENIED that it was published on the public world wide web (even for a nanosecond or a year), and has not DENIED that it remained available to the public through search engines and most importantly, has not categorically DENIED that it was copied from marketmanila.com.
“PROMPTLY DELETED” — Mr./Ms. Garduque seems so confident in his/her quoted statement that the article was promptly deleted. So may I ask for clear answers to the following? On what date and time was the article first published as a “TEST”? For how long did the article remain published on the web? When exactly was the article “promptly deleted” and who deleted it? Why was the article not fully deleted from the web, expunged and cleanly removed? Why was the article suddenly removed today, after my post… which indicates it was more than possible to remove it completely from the public eye but it wasn’t done 2+ years ago? So how could it be asserted that it was “promptly deleted”? In my opinion, it was promptly deleted TODAY, hours after I wrote about it on this blog. But it was most certainly overlooked and certainly not PROMPTLY DELETED from the public eye for the past 3 years! If Mr. Garduque does not have instant answers to my questions after having a full day to investigate, then how can she be so certain in her talk with the GMA reporter that it was indeed “promptly deleted”?
“HINDI KAMI NAGPE-PLAGIARIZE…” — Really, now? Are you sure Mr./Ms. Garduque? Have you even bothered to look up the definition of plagiarism? Let me help you by referring to an article I wrote on it years ago:
If you google “define plagiarism,” the first entry by Wikipedia defines the term plagiarism as, and I quote with link included, “Plagiarism (from the Latin plagiare, “to kidnap”) is the practice of claiming, or implying, original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else’s written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one’s own without adequate acknowledgement.”
Until you let me know for certain that you or your hired consultants DID NOT IN FACT COPY WORD FOR WORD my earlier article on the top filipino dishes, and until you prove that a Ms. trinadelros did not appear in a byline for said article, and until you prove that you did not wittingly or unwittingly provide a platform and format and page and PUBLISH IT on the world wide web and made accessible to the public, and until you explain why you did not clean it fully out of the records until today, UNTIL THEN, as far as it appears to me, some form of plagiarism has apparently occurred under the watch of this DOT website and the folks who oversee it.
Let’s not muddle the issue any more, and please, please Mr./Ms. Garduque, do not try to piss me off some more by publicly being quoted as saying the following:
He also appealed to the blog’s writer “not to blow the issue out of proportion,” while gaving the assurance that employees or partners from private firms will be sanctioned if plagiarism was indeed committed.
Frankly, you have some nerve telling me “not to blow the issue out of proportion”. I wrote my post and waited for a response from the DOT. I got it and was prepared to wait for more detailed answers. Meanwhile, I sent a simple response to the GMANews reporter’s inquiry, and that was after the article was published by GMANews on-line. I declined a telephone interview. I declined a television or on camera interview. I pointed the reporter to my earlier post. You meanwhile, saw fit to give several quotes to the reporter, and instead of coursing your answers through Atty. Kaw, who had already made contact with me and had assured me he would get to the bottom of things, you have been quoted with definitive statements that you yourself contradict in the same conversation. For example, you say “hindi kami nagple-plagiarize” and then later you are described by the reported as “giving assurance that the employees or partners from private firms will be sanctioned if plagiarism was indeed committed.” So what is the story, hindi kayo naple-plagiarize or hindi pa siguro sa ngayon kung nag-plagiarize yung suppliers ninyo??? Who was the private firm? Who was responsible for writing the “test pages”? Who was trinadelros? You have had a day to check on these questions, do you have the answers? If you cannot even identify the writer trinadelros (just google her a bit and see if that jogs your memory) then how can you say for certain that the article was not plagiarized? And even if you try to explain and weasel out later that a private firm was the one who plagiarized (if true), is the DOT still not RESPONSIBLE for allowing that article to be PUBLISHED and PUBLICLY viewed for a period of three years? How convenient if we could all just point to third party providers, private contractors, advertising firms, website designers, etc. as the root of all such problems. How convenient indeed. In that case, we should perhaps just outsource everything, and would have little need for real employees at government agencies who aren’t really ultimately responsible for any of their actions.
P.S. For Mr./Ms. Garduque, a final note for you to ponder as the OIC of the IT area at the DOT. The DOT website, ranked by ALEXA, is currently the 319,471th most visited website in the world, and it is estimated to be the 6,309th most visited website in the Philippines. Considering that it should be one of the main portals for foreigners and locals alike who would be potential tourists in our beautiful country, how unfortunate that most of the commenters here seem to think the DOT site lacks sufficient content. And I presume you have several people, and by your own quotes, outside consultants who helped you to design and possibly maintain the site. Considering that the country hopes to attract in excess of five million tourists a year, that seems like a large potential market of users of the DOT website, and many an opportunity lost to promote our country and its destinations… As a taxpayer, I wonder how much money was expended to develop and maintain the DOT website.
Marketmanila.com, on the other hand, is maintained and written by me. I occasionally get the help of a techie to help sort out software issues but use him less than a couple of hours a month. Marketmanila.com is currently the 112,320th most visited website in the world and the 996th most visited site in the Philippines. On a daily basis, this site receives approximately 5-7x the number of visitors as the DOT website. Regular visitors on this blog hail from over 150+ countries around the globe, and many of them do come home to visit the Philippines. This site is completely commercial free, and it cost the public and taxpayers nothing. So at the very least, I would appreciate it if you don’t condone or make light of anyone plagiarizing the site’s contents. Thank you.
48 Responses
A ‘test page’? My gulay, SUCH a lame excuse. Haven’t their IT ‘experts’ come across lorem ipsum blah-blah placeholders (filler text)? Again, my gulay.
Go get ’em!
Mistakes are pardonable when they are acknowledged but contradictory/inflammatory/dismissive remarks are nakaka-highblood.
Mr. Garduque is probably just a talking head. Let’s see what Mon Jimenez has to say. I trust he understands the gravity of a plagiarism charge even if it didn’t happen on his watch. Wouldn’t be surprised if it all turns out to be the talking head’s fault.
TEST PAGE?! I’ve seen test pages from website developers in the US, if not Lorem ipsum, it’s certainly an original piece written by their content writers. How can that DOT page be a test page, it’s left there accessible to people? If the test is done, remove it and that was like how many years of ago?! Kahit na test page lang yan, it’s still an UNAUTHORIZED USE of someone else’s work.
Off the record:
MM, I found trinadelros’ xxxx page. I’m wondering if her sample articles turn out to be plagiarized too. Hope this could help contacting her…. xxxxxxxx — Kai thanks, but I have deleted link as we can’t be certain at this point it is the same person and we wouldn’t want to implicate someone until we have reason to. The name is a common one, so care is especially required. If that is the person though, read their sample work and regardless of who she is, the writing is ATROCIOUS. :)
I hope you get to read this. This Trinadelro is actually, xxxx. (deleted) — Hi Harve, thanks for that, but I have deleted the link as I am not certain that is one and the same person. It is a common name, so until I have confirmation, I would rather not link to someone who may not be involved at all. Thanks.
DOT should be cautious on who they allow to speak to the media, otherwise it will just add proof on how incompetent the department is. From the GMA News article, Garduque’s remarks doesn’t hold water.
Ideally, the DOT webteam, should have a development server from which they could develop its webpages. Once the pages are done by the web designers and/or web developers, the website and it’s webpages can then be moved to another server where it can be verified and validated by a testing team, for example. Once the it has been vetted, only then can the webpages be promoted to the production server where the public can see it.
From what I see, the DOT webteam is not following the best practices for web development. The testpage should have been and should have stayed in the development server ONLY.
The lamest BS I’ve ever heard. I’ve made some test pages for a website. I’ve made a website. I use original content if available. If not, yup it’s lorem ipsum blah blah.
TEST PAGE YEAH RIGHT! Hey Mr. DOT Tech Guy ever heard of Lorem Ipsum? More so, there are a thousand alternatives now if you’re bored with Lorem Ipsum, there’s a Hipster Ipsum, Gangsta Lorem ippzle, Corporate Ipsum etc.
Obviously no one has to be a lawyer to understand the word, nor anyone to be an IT head. Please, just apologize, see who is at fault and get him/her reprimanded. You probably are getting more hits on your DOT website now because of MM.. for bad publicity that is LOL
Lamest excuse indeed. Should have kept his mouth shut and let Atty. Kaw do the talking.
Ay, naku…it would be far better if they hired FOOTLOOSE to write articles for them! No one knows more about the ‘Pins dating from 19 kopong kopong…the origin of say even hopia! That is something to consider, Mr. Secretary!
@ Jakespeed – they probably do their test page LIVE! haha. I guess they like living by the edge. But if they claim that this was tested on their development server, they must have had a massive security breach for the public to be able to access it. Either way something is amiss.
Anyway, test page or not it still does not give the DOT the right to use the materials. They should admit their mistakes, apologize, let some head/s roll, then move on. Covering their behinds with BS like this will just get them deeper in shi..ole.
Plagiarism is never considered a small offense. It is always a serious offense that warrants censure. Why can’t people understand that?
Hi! MM,
Mabuti na lang, there’s ube haleya in between the post.
Take care.
Agree with all the comments above, lame excuses etc. But put it this way MM, you have expertise, experience and a worldwide network of loyal fans. Maybe you wouldn’t want the job, but the DOT could do better if they PAY you to produce material for them! I presume they’re funded from public funds, and as someone who pays Philippine taxes, I’d rather my money was spent this way! Also the halaya made everything feel better.
MM,
It’s me again. Last night after I read your post I was kind of worried that it willbe another one of those days which actually sometimes is fun to read whenever you are upset about something.But for some reason I was kind of not looking forward to it, worrying about you but was relieved when i saw the ube post. A little breather I guess.
WERE SOME OF OUR COMMENTS POTENTIALLY PROBLEMATIC? MIGHT BE? I ONLY ASKED HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO TALK ABOUT FILIPINO FOOD EVEN IF ONE DOES NOT COOK … AND NOW, TO HAVE THIS HAPPEN TO THEM TWICE?!? IS THIS HABIT-FORMING?
What a load of BS. Shame on you IT department of DOT for coming up with the “test page” explanation. You can’t fool anyone with that lame excuse.
I’m a web “techie” of sorts. Test pages should not be searchable for any reason, easily done if they know what they’re doing.
Mr. head of IT should have waited for their lawyer rather than speaking to the press. Some people just love the publicity, no matter what reason. If they really wanted to rectify the situation an officer in charge of the press should have spoken instead — not this idi*t!
We’re with you MM. Just watch the blood pressure.
That reply was funny.
PITS, I was referring to several folks who kindly tried to identify the supposed author, by linking to websites of people with similar names. But we don’t know for sure that that is indeed the author, so to be safe, I have removed those links. We don’t want to cast aspersions if we don’t know the person involved… there are too many people with similar names to be careless… Only the DOT or the author themselves can clearly identify the “writer”…
DOT probably has a big enough budget for an IT department to have a QA server to test how the viewing public would see whatever they want to plagiarize (lol) before showing it to the public at large, and should not be available whatsoever from any web crawlers. If not they should fire all their IT heads for using prod servers for testing. But i think it’s not the IT but the DOT website editor’s fault. And if their spokesperson (Mr/Ms Garduque) is also their editor, i can see heads rolling now.
Hey MM, if you need something to divert your mind from all this, just look back at those photos of people looking into the “I Scream” cooler. :-) My fiance and I laughed yet again with them this morning.
Pwede ba, June Garduque, just remain silent and let the Atty. Kaw do the talking (better yet, apologizing). You’re just frying yourself in your own lard…
Unsolicited advise to Mr/Ms Garduque….KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. You are showing your incompetence with your reasoning. Let Atty. Kaw do the talking.
Isaac, the blue ladies come to my comic relief without fail every time I revisit the post… :)
MM…subtitles please what the blue ladies said!
And now, two contenders for the Fishpan Award!
I’m sorry Ms. trinadelro, but my vote goes to June Garduque.
duh..Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text . I am awaiting the details of DOT investigation within the day. This should be interesting. Are they taking us for fools?
the most infuriating and insulting thing about this is the fact that Mr./Ms. Garduque actually believed that readers would swallow the explanation hook, line and sinker!
Have Mr Garduque heard of “Less talk, less mistake”? Apparently not. So lame! :(
Let’s wait and see the results of Atty. Kaw’s “investigation”. This should be interesting….
So, after the plagiarism issue, another problem within our government departments became glaringly obvious: lack of coordination! I bet Garduque didn’t bother to check if anyone is investigating the issue before agreeing to the interview – s/he probably got giddy with the thought of a media exposure!!!
Bettyq: hubby agrees with you. Let the likes of Footloose, Apicio and Lee write for the DOT wesbite and get MM as a consultant to any Pinoy food-related (even travel related) articles… If Footloose, Lee and Apicio won’t agree, “bribe” them with some Zubuchon (paid for using taxpayers’ money)!!! I love the way my hubby thinks…
Not only did “Trinadelro” plagiarize your article MM, she used a clearly watermarked photo from filipino-food-lovers.com in her post without the necessary attribution. The kicker is that the DOT page (test page? yeah, right!) even says “Copyright 2009. All Rights Reserved” at the bottom. hahaha!
Hey MM, something good came out of this fiasco: your readers now know that apart from the usual suspects (Footloose, Apicio and Lee – and Silly lolo although he’s been silent recently), there are a lot of other good writers that follow you: Kajong (Jolibee Top 10), Ted (burjer), CyanFox (makaw stayl)! Sec Jimenez may want to engage their services: they can write well and most importantly, they come up with original materials (not to mention crack us up – in a nice way) !!!!
it’s like the dpwh incident all over again! when will these people ever learn that we are not as simple minded as they think we are and can easily smell their BS a mile away! and frankly, blaming the former administration for everything is getting quite old. they’ve been in office for some time now so blaming the former administration is not an excuse anymore.
I can’t believe the taxes I pay end up paying the salary of that Garduque character. tsk! tsk!
Just a thought…are footloose, apicio and silly lolo, one and the same? ;)
Lame excuse indeed!
They are the ones blowing things out of proportion.
Also saw profiles of the said freelance writer… Hope you get your answers, an apology, and due credit at the very least.
by the way, your latest post don’t show up on home page…Oct. 26 post is on the front page, dunno if it’s just on my screen.
Marketman, I tweeted this to USec Manolo Quezon. This is what he said: “dot has written to marketman, article was 2008 and taken down 2 years ago. They are looking into circumstances though.”
Mindanaoan, yes, MLQIII would understand. But even though they claim it was taken down two years ago, it was on the net until yesterday… The question now is, who wrote it?
Here in the Philippines, I have noticed that excuses are quite common. Sadly, people accept these excuses and don’t press any further.
When a city counselor of a smaller local municipality was asked about the tons of pedicabs on the national highway (illegal), the counselor said “well, the HAVE to make a living”.
So, illegal is OK if it is in the process of someone earning a living?
I am totally pissed off with this Garduque person! I swear i could slash his/her bleeping throat when I see him/her! I am a writer, too, and respect the very sanctity of article ownership so I perfectly understand the shallowness that Garduque displays. Such an abomination! Hmm, maybe he/she is TRINADELROS?! hate him/her!
Just sharing: my cousin on her first term of college in a well-known school in Manila, when given a history paper to write, printed the Encarta Encyclopedia article on the topic. The instructor recognized that she did not write her paper alerted her that she was supposed to write original material. She told me this story a few years after the incident and she was still defensive and blamed the teacher for not being clear.
Granted, she actually studied high school abroad (but not because of her/a scholarship) and it was only the first term so the university could not have had time to inculcate bad habits into her. But then again, when recounting the incident even after some years had passed, she did not seem to understand what plagiarism was.
I love the way you casually threw down the gauntlet at the end of the article.
I hope this issue will be settled, let us hope and pray for the best of both parties concerned.
Funny side?
Philippine bureaucracy/red tape is such that it takes “2 years to approve/disapprove content of a ‘test’ web page and take it offline”…
Hay naku! Wala pa ring pinagbago…
This is the kind of response that a bureaucrat will give just to save face. You are so effing guilty! Your ineptitude and inefficiency cannot be ignored nor denied. Were you dropped on the head or something? How can you deny plagiarism when it is so blatant?! The crappy way you think shows in the crappy execution or development of the DOT website. This stinks!!!