Over RH bill: Should Sotto give a damn to cyberbullies?

“It’s really getting personal their attacks against me and which I think ought to be addressed…” Senator Sotto explains during his privilege speech on RH bill. (File photo from: prolife.org)

Reasonably and out of respect, he shouldn’t.

Over the past weeks when Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III delivered his “turno en contra“ RH bill speech at the Senate, roughly an hour before he could finish, he was under the ire of cyberbullying from pro-RH bill netizens. A number of them almost crushed the Senator into pieces by posting mean messages attacking personally and professionally Senator Sotto for his strong, ardent counterargument to the controversial RH bill.

What might be the implication of cyberbullying?

What has been transpired from cyberbullying Senator Sotto gained out of his deepest concern for the public against the RH bill was the real depiction of how the vocal society comprising the pro-RH bill were desperate to continue the battle.

Senator Sotto, as he claimed, was the first senator in the country who became a victim of cyberbullying.  This was so because he was the first senator in the country to come to the open expressing his clear and distinct understanding of what the country today wanted to pass into law.  RH bill, I presumed, is as evil as what he had seen over his experience, careful and keen observation, and common sense.  However, proponents of RH bill dared arguing it scientifically.

A crime which isn’t a crime

Then came the issue of plagiarism Senator Sotto allegedly committed.

In the first place, I wanted to slice plagiarism, but I noticed that there’s no in dire need to educate netizens and the public about the “quasi” crime — plagiarism. I called it “quasi” crime because plagiarism will only become a crime under academic policy.  Furthermore, laws on copyrights and intellectual property are too vague to assume and let them be the bases to construe plagiarism as crime under the law. In other words, plagiarism can only become a crime depending on the premise; it is not an absolute crime. However, only people who are “fanatic” of plagiarism as a crime construe as it is.  It is complete egoistic.

Strictly speaking, when a blogger copied the original thought of an author by paraphrasing it and here came Senator Sotto copied the paraphrased thought of an original author and gave credit to the latter, Senator Sotto did not commit plagiarism.  On the contrary, when a blogger, who Senator Sotto allegedly has copied the paraphrased thought, happened to neglect attribution, then a blogger did it, outright.

Should Senator Sotto give a damn to his detractors?

Now, another cyberbully has surfaced in the networking site challenging Senator Sotto to a debate over the RH bill. For them, they valued RH bill most as if their lifeline and only the passage of it could they continue living.  On the contrary, I presumed, for Senator Sotto, their future is bleak the reason why they end up challenging the Senator as if they have seats in the Philippine Senate, or as if they underestimate the intelligence and capacity of the future ICC judge with a doctor of laws Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, along with Senator Pia Cayetano and the rest pro-RH bill senators, to convince the Senate pass the bill.

To the challenger, this piece of advice is good for your health: Stay foot, watch the game; don’t overestimate your ability over Senator Sotto. To some pro-RH bill, exercise our self-restraint; do not overemphasize our desperation of our battle, because debates over RH bill are nonsense in the eye of a morally upright countrymen.

Conclusion

Finally, let me cast my side of the RH bill story.  I am simply against RH bill. Although scientific arguments of the RH bill proponents are considerably just, I always have in my mind that all things and arguments can not be resolved scientifically. There has and always an exception to the rule, a cliche may go. The same way that in every negotiation, it can not be resolved always by presenting formulas and collating scientific data. Nevertheless, the life we lived in and the nation we belonged to are but laboratories.

RH bill can not be resolved through debates. It can be resolved by self-conviction, self-contemplation, and self-assessment about what life is all about under the guidance of what we have known since the beginning of our days.  We can improve the lives of our countrymen without sacrificing the moral uprightness of the means we believed in were solutions to a very long time problem.

The purpose of RH bill is good; however, the means of accomplishing it are unfit to all aspects of moral uprightness. Thus, the Senate should declare it illegal on the basis of moral issues and not on scientific arguments.  All of us do have hearts like Senator Sotto, don’t we?

Related articles

• Sotto Says He Is A Victim Of Cyber-Bullying (philippinenewsonline.wordpress.com)
• Sotto’s Crusade and the RH Bill: What Really Violates Filipinos’ Freedom of Choice? (gelsantosrelos.typepad.com)
• Sotto warns he can filibuster on RH bill as regular senator (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
• ‘I’m a victim of cyber-bullying’ – Sotto (newsinfo.inquirer.net)