The Supreme Court’s decision in “The Matter of the Charges of Plagiarism Etc.

against
Associate Justice Mariano C. Del Castillo” (A.M. 10-7-17-SC, October 12, 2010) favored the
accused Justice Del Castillo in the plagiarism charges against him by the UP Law Faculty.
According to Webster, to plagiarize is

Plagiarism, as Black’s Law Dictionary also defined, is a “deliberate and knowing presentation of another
person's original ideas or creative expressions as one's own." However, the Supreme Court, after stating
the definition from Black’s Law Dictionary added that plagiarism presupposes intent and a deliberate,
conscious effort to steal another's work and pass it off as one's own. With this, the Supreme Court
dismissed the case against Justice Del Castillo stating that