Blogger: Tourism Department website stole my post

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Tourism is once again getting the ire of Filipino netizens, after a prominent food blogger discovered one of his posts has been copied and posted on the agency’s website.

Blogger Marketman, who runs the Market Manila blog, (www.marketmanila.com), posted a new blog entry dated November 2, where he said one of his posts has been copied and posted at the DOT website.

Marketman said a post he made back in June 2006, entitled “Putahe Idol – The Results,” was lifted “word for word” and published on the DOT site by a certain “trinadelro” back in 2008.

He said on his post that he discovered the copied article only this week, and compared the original post to the DOT article.

The DOT page in question has also been taken down from the website www.tourism.gov.ph, but Marketman was able to grab a screenshot, which he also posted.

“Is there no shame? Are people really so damn lazy? Don’t they have any self respect? Are they going to claim they didn’t think there was anything wrong with this?,” he wrote.

He then asked the Tourism Department to explain the incident, and asked his readers to do the same.

“I would like a full and comprehensive explanation from the DOT and the author, a contact address or telephone number for trinadelro, and I would at the very least expect a sincere public apology from the DOT and Ms. trinadelro, if the article was indeed plagiarized,” he said.

He added, “I am particularly dismayed to see the Philippine Tourism website so shoddily devoid of properly written, interesting and useful content on the topic of filipino food, other than this likely plagiarized article which is even more bizarre when presented out of context.”

His readers were quick to react, with his post getting 36 comments – all expressing dismay towards the DOT regarding the incident – as of 2 pm Wednesday.

People have also started posting links of the blog rant on the DOT page on Facebook. The department has yet to issue a statement on the matter.

Not the first

This new incident involving the DOT runs along the lines of the “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” brouhaha.

In November 2010, the DOT launched the new slogan in a grand showcase before tourism stakeholders, but a blogger noticed similarities of the new logo with a logo of a tourism campaign for Poland.

The blog post ignited a storm of criticism online and offline, and the Tourism Department later said it was just one of several campaigns being considered.

It was eventually “killed” days later, with then Secretary Alberto Lim admitting they rushed the release of the campaign. It also led to the resignation of Enteng Romano, the principal behind the campaign, from his post as undersecretary.

“How embarrassing that the DOT got caught for an allegedly plagiarized tourism logo last November, when a full two years earlier, the DOT website already contained what appears to be a plagiarized article from marketmanila.com,” Marketman also wrote. – Rappler.com