In response to the recent post of Palawan News, https://palawan-news.com/palawan-daily-news-must-stop-plagiarizing/, accusing Alpha Eight Publishing’s weekly regional newspaper Palawan Daily News of plagiarism, the Editor in Chief sternly denies the claim and underscores that the core values and work ethics of the paper have been adhered to including the instant case as the facts would clearly show.
“Their post is clearly an act to besmirch and malign our reputation and to bring damage to our publication. We categorically deny their accusation. The facts will bear us out. Plagiarism is against our core values and work ethics. We do not condone plagiarism,” said Engr. Harthwell C. Capistrano.
He stressed that the alleged plagiarized post properly credited the assumed source of the article.
“It all started when last May 15 (Wednesday) we saw a post on a Facebook group Tarabidan Kita Kooperatiba an interesting potential news story. I immediately reached out to Augus Russ (Renato Tenorio, Jr.) introducing myself as the Editor in Chief. I asked him if we could post it on our Facebook Page. He agreed.”
The Editor in Chief also emphasized their efforts to check and verify the source of news saying, “After checking on the Facebook search if it has similar content and there was none, the post was published on the FB page of PDN. Believing it was him who wrote it, we credited him and put his name on the byline, which is what our guidelines prescribe.”
When that post was discovered to have been written by Palawan News and not by Mr Tenorio, which the PDN team discovered a day after posting it on the official Facebook page, it was taken down and PDN communicated with and apologized to PN.
“The following day, May 16 (Thursday), we found out that Augus Russ does not own that post when media friends sent us screenshots of the original story. I immediately deleted the post and reached out to Ms. Joy Tabuada, the Editor in Chief of Palawan News, explaining to her what happened. We were the one who sought her first.”
Tabuada, in the Messenger conversation, highlighted the importance of acknowledging the source and threatened us with legal action. “This is our story. You have to give us due credit. We still have the screenshot of the article which [sic] an evidence of plagiarism. We demand a formal apology in writing to put this sorry incident on record, or we will be forced to seek legal remedies,” she said.
The PDN team immediately issued a public apology posted on its Facebook page and sent a formal letter of apology signed by Mr. Capistrano.
Despite granting the demands of the other party, PDN team did not expect Palawan News would capitalize on it and ascribe plagiarism when there was none. “But we were surprised that they posted it on their website and their Facebook page and declared that we plagiarized their story. How can that be when we sought permission from the person we thought wrote the story and asked for his approval for us to publish the story? We put his name on the byline and not our name. How can that be stealing another person’s work?”
“There is always a proper venue to address this issue. They can even file a case against us but despite us professionally expressing our apology, we are being maliciously attacked. This is not the first time that they accused us. But we just let it passed.”
When asked about PDN’s next steps, Engr. Capistrano said, “We are referring the case to our legal counsel and the authorities, especially to the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group and the National Bureau of Investigation Cybercrime Division for proper action.”