Estrada mum on Sotto's new plagiarism issue

SENATOR Jinggoy Estrada distanced himself on allegations that Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III committed another case of plagiarism in his concluding speech against the Reproductive Health bill on Wednesday.

"I think it's up to Senator Sotto to investigate. It is internal on their part. I have no business meddling in the affairs of other senators," he said in a briefing Thursday.

Hours after Sotto accused the bill as a population control measure and whose purpose is repetitive of over a dozen laws, Twitter user Michel Eldiy found out that the senator's final remarks is the Filipino translation of a late American lawmaker.

Eldiy said Sotto lifted his quotes from former United States Senator Robert Kennedy's "See of Affirmation" speech in South Africa in 1966.

"Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and the total—all these acts—will be written in the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage such as these that the belief that human history is thus shaped," an excerpt of Kennedy’s speech stated.

Sotto admitted in a newspaper interview that the passage was texted to him by a friend and included it in his speech. Again, the senator denied it was plagiarized as he found it better to have Kennedy's words understood by Filipinos.

Recently, Sotto was caught under fire for failing to attribute an article of American blogger Sarah Pope about the damaging effects of contraceptives, which the bill eyed for massive distribution. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)