Del Castillo's "answer" to plagiarism charge made public

On December 7, 2011, the Phillipine House Committee on Justice ordered Del Castillo to answer a impeachment complaint following an overwhelming 40 against seven voting which found the impeachment complaint based on betrayal of public trust was sufficient in substance. On May 18, 2011, the panel voted 11 against 10 and one abstention declaring that the impeachment complaint against Del Castillo was sufficient in form.

Within the answer, recently made publicly available:

“In this case, the alleged improper citation of certain works by foreign authors lacks both elements because the non-attribution was through inadvertence or honest mistake, without malice or bad faith, and no prejudice resulted because what were cited in the said works were mere background information. Further, if we assume that it is possible to have judicial plagiarism, it does not have the extreme gravity requirement under Article XI, Section 2 of the Constitution.”