IN THE MATTER OF THE CHARGES OF PLAGIARISM ETC..

, AGAINST ASSOCIATE
JUSTICE MARIANO DEL CASTILLO

Facts:

Petitioners Isabelita C. Vinuya and about 70 other elderly women, all members of the Malaya
Lolas Organization, filed with the Court in G.R. No. 162230 a special civil action of certiorari with
application for preliminary mandatory injunction against the Executive Secretary, the Secretary
of Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of Justice, and the Office of the Solicitor General.

On June 9, 2010, petitioners filed a motion for reconsideration of the Court’s decision.

On July 19, 2010, petitioners filed the supplemental motion for reconsideration that Atty. Roque
announced. It accused Justice Del Castillo of "manifest intellectual theft and outright plagiarism"
when he wrote the decision for the Court and of "twisting the true intents of the plagiarized
sources … to suit the arguments of the assailed Judgment."2 They charged Justice Del Castillo
of copying without acknowledgement certain passages from three foreign articles:

a. A Fiduciary Theory of Jus Cogens by Evan J. Criddle and Evan Fox-Descent, Yale Journal of
International Law (2009);

b. Breaking the Silence: Rape as an International Crime by Mark Ellis, Case Western Reserve
Journal of International Law (2006); and

c. Enforcing Erga Omnes Obligations by Christian J. Tams, Cambridge University Press (2005).

Issue:

Whether or not, in writing the opinion for the Court in the Vinuya case, Justice Del Castillo
plagiarized the published works of authors Tams, Criddle-Descent, and Ellis.

Ruling:

The Court adopts the Committee’s finding that the researcher’s explanation regarding the
accidental removal of proper attributions to the three authors is credible. Given the operational
properties of the Microsoft program in use by the Court, the accidental decapitation of
attributions to sources of research materials is not remote.

The mistake of Justice Del Castillo’s researcher is that, after the Justice had decided what texts,
passages, and citations were to be retained including those from Criddle-Descent and Ellis, and
when she was already cleaning up her work and deleting all subject tags, she unintentionally
deleted the footnotes that went with such tags with disastrous effect

WHEREFORE, in view of all of the above, the Court:

DISMISSES for lack of merit petitioner Vinuya, et al.’s charges of plagiarism, twisting of cited
materials, and gross neglect against Justice Mariano C. del Castillo
IN THE MATTER OF THE CHARGES OF PLAGIARISM AGAINST ASSOCIATE JUSTICE
MARIANO C. DEL CASTILLO(February 8, 2011)

Facts:

Petitioners Isabelita C. Vinuya, et al., all members of the Malaya Lolas Organization, seek
reconsideration of the decision of the Court dated October 12, 2010 that dismissed their
charges of plagiarism, twisting of cited materials, and gross neglect against Justice Mariano Del
Castillo in connection with the decision he wrote for the Court in G.R. No. 162230, entitled
Vinuya v. Romulo.

the Loyola Schools Code of Academic Integrity ordains that "plagiarism is identified not through
intent but through the act itself. The objective act of falsely attributing to one’s self what is not
one’s work, whether intentional or out of neglect, is sufficient to conclude that plagiarism has
occurred. Students who plead ignorance or appeal to lack of malice are not excused."

Issue :

Whether or not Plagiarism has been committed by Judge Castillo

Ruling:

No, Justice Del Castillo failed to attribute to the foreign authors materials that he lifted from their
works and used in writing the decision for the Court in the Vinuya case. But, as the Court said,
the evidence as found by its Ethics Committee shows that the attribution to these authors
appeared in the beginning drafts of the decision. Unfortunately, as testified to by a highly
qualified and experienced court-employed researcher, she accidentally deleted the same at the
time she was cleaning up the final draft. The Court believed her since, among other reasons,
she had no motive for omitting the attribution. The foreign authors concerned, like the dozens of
other sources she cited in her research, had high reputations in international law

Notably, those foreign authors expressly attributed the controversial passages found in their
works to earlier writings by others. The authors concerned were not themselves the originators.
As it happened, although the ponencia of Justice Del Castillo accidentally deleted the attribution
to them, there remained in the final draft of the decision attributions of the same passages to the
earlier writings from which those authors borrowed their ideas in the first place. In short, with the
remaining attributions after the erroneous clean-up, the passages as it finally appeared in the
Vinuya decision still showed on their face that the lifted ideas did not belong to Justice Del
Castillo but to others. He did not pass them off as his own.

With our ruling, the Court need not dwell long on petitioners’ allegations that Justice Del Castillo
had also committed plagiarism in writing for the Court his decision in another case, Ang Ladlad
v. Commission on Elections.10 Petitioners are nit-picking.

ACCORDINGLY, the Court DENIES petitioners’ motion for reconsideration for lack of merit.