Abante apologizes to Jill

Followers of my girlfriend Jill’s blog would be familiar with her recent Abante episode, where she was plagiarized, plain and simple, via a unauthorized reposting of her post about an ongoing scam at NAIA.

Apparently certain enterprising officials would plant damning evidence in traveler’s baggage for the purpose of extortion. In the case mentioned above, a bullet was placed inside a 75 year old lady’s bag for which she had to spend a night in one of Pasay City’s no doubt pleasant and well-appointed jail cells.

This particular case faced a snag however, when a capable (and experienced in similar situations) lawyer managed to intervene and the situation was dealt with sans further incident, albeit not without leaving the obvious bad taste in one’s mouth, and the overhanging gloom of similar future incidents in likelihood.

At any rate, Abante on Dec. 3 of this year re-posted said blog entry without recognition due to Jill who originally wrote about it on Nov. 3, instead crediting one “Gil R. Collantes”. You can read it here, and here’s a screenshot as well, which I took when I first discovered it for posterity and/or in case it may become unavailable for whatever reason:

You will notice it’s on Senator Gringo Honasan’s regular column, which of course is likely run by ghostwriters, but carries his name nonetheless. Of course, Jill sent a short message sending notice of said mishap, to wit:

Dear Sir,

My complaint is with regard to your December 3 column in Abante.

The NAIA story credited to Gil Collantes came from my blog http://sabitskipoint.blogspot.com

Please refer to the two links I sent in my earlier mail to verify my claims of authorship.

Thank you very much.
Jillsabs

Today however, Abante recants with the following:

Dear Jill:

We are calling the attention of a certain Gil Collantes regarding his claims that he wrote it, or something to that effect. We saw your blogspot and as you said, the story originated from you.

We shall be making necessary erratum or proper attribution in our next saturday’s column. We apologize for the inadvertent mistake. …

God bless,
On behalf of Mr Honasan…
by Marc Guerrero
Advocacy Journalist

In short, all’s well that ends well, as Jill is satisfied with said recant, which is easy given she wasn’t particularly keen on one anyway, given she never made a big deal out of it.

Nevertheless, I decided to make this post to list above recollection of events for various reasons.

Primarily, for the obvious – as a way to archive what happened for future reference and as a third party repository.

Second for the fyi of anyone who may want to read an interesting story, no doubt a point of interest for bloggers and content providers for internet publications in general.

And third, because right now I am so very proud of my lovely and humble Jill, who never made a fuss and completely lacks interest in any form of retribution, or even more foolhardy, fame, from it.

As evidenced by the fact that she didn’t even consider the screenshot I made on her blog, and that right now her primary concern is her visiting from the US baby niece (picture at the top), which I shall make the acquaintance of soon.

That, and the fact that she just found her missing lipbalm of two weeks, apparently hiding under her bed, which she texted me about just now.

And with that, I ponder my good fortune – at having such a wonderful partner to be with, and a unostentatious one at that. Ah the feeling of getting something right.