Senator Vicente "Tito" Sotto III already dodged two claims that he lifted parts of his speeches from other work without attribution.
Yet after being "cyberbullied" and drawing flak for his "copied" speeches, here comes another plagiarism accusation.
A second U.S.-based blogger claimed that Sotto copied and "twisted" parts of her 2010 post in the same speech which allegedly contained parts lifted from blogger Sarah Pope.
"According to the Filipino reporters who alerted me to this, Sen. Vicente 'Tito' Sotto III lifted entire passages from a post I wrote for Feminists For Choice and twisted them into an anti-choice argument against an important reproductive rights bill in the country," Janice Formichella said in a post in Ms. Magazine's blog.
The piece she had written was about the Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi's "little known sexism," the blogger added.
Not only did Sotto use the same quote from Gandhi in her post, Formichella said, the senator lifted "entire segments... albeit put into an anti-choice context."
She added: "Given the content of my post and my very pro-contraception position, I could hardly understand how my words could be used to argue against reproductive rights."
"[T]hough he misconstrues my argument it's ironic that he chose this particular piece, as it aptly reflects his own hypocrisy as a political leader," Formichella said.
The blogger sought an apology from Sotto, not only to her but also Sarah Pope, from whose post the senator's staff admits to have copied.
She noted, however, the hubbub over Sotto's alleged plagiarism "might actually serve to increase the exposure of the Reproductive Health Bill."
What follows is a comparison of Sotto's speech and Formichella's blog post.
Fourteen early winners in the party-list race have been named Friday even as the protracted count of votes continues.
