What UP Student Mark Solis is really saying in his letter of apology

UP Student Mark Solis says sorry after being busted for sending a photo he claimed 
he took of a boy "gathering seaweed in Zamboanga City" to a "Smiles of the World" 
contest sponsored by the Chilean government. The prize was $1,000 and a trip to 
Brazil and Chile - which ironically was where the below

photo actually came from,

Photo from gmanews website.

Thanks to the internet, the picture was discovered to be taken by Gregory John Smith
 - NOT Mark Solis. The picture was NOT of a boy in Zamboanga but a photo Smith
 took of a child having fun with 

other kids throwing seaweeds at each other on a beach in Paraty, Rio de Janeiro.

What was cringe-inducing was the fact that Solis had the gall and conceit to make up
 a colorful story about the picture even titling it as a display of "...the Filipino Spirit," and 
conjuring a context of the child as "help(ing) his father in farming seaweeds along a 
coastal community in Zamboanga province," 

Thanks to the internet, again, it was discovered that Solis submitted the same photo 
to another contest 

and passed it off this time of a child 
who "helps his father harvest seaweed in Ramanathapuram district, India.”

Photo from: ICIMOD.

Fortunately, the boy looks South American, Indian and South East Asian all at the 
same time.

Unfortunately, Solis is a 2nd rate trying hard hack who by the sheer belief in his 
suaveness thought he could pocket $1,000 and get a free trip to Chile/Brazil 
without lifting a finger (actually he did lift a finger to click and download a 
photo from Flickr) and get away with it.

Because he thought it was only he that had access to the internet? 

Because he thought it was only he who knew where to look for what, 
and that no one else knew

how to use google?

And should his below apology letter be believed to be remorseful and sincere?

Or is he saying something else?

GREGORY JOHN SMITH

Dear Mr. Smith,

Children at Risk Foundation

I am writing to you to express my deep remorse and sincerest apologies 

for claiming your photo as mine.

I am writing to you to express my regret for being busted. 

Yep, you caught me pretending to claim as mine 

the photo you really took. 

As the rightful owner of the photo, you deserve my initial thoughts and 

statement about this.

Because the photo is really yours, you need to hear me justify why 

I did it, okay? 

Your photo was one of the most heartwarming photos I have ever seen,
 and I could only

 wish that I had the ability to capture such moments as well as you did. I kept it as

wallpaper in my computer – an enduring reminder of what every amateur photographer 

should aspire for.

You know what? I love your photo!! I want to flatter you because 

hopefully that will softenyour stance on what I did. It's also true that the 

photo you took is the most beautiful I've ever seen because it's

 something

 I know - in a million years - 

I cannot do, even if I try my best to (because well, I'm too lazy to

 actually go out and take a 

picture of anything see). And even if I did, I don't think I have

 the eye or the heart to see 

anything joyful or heartwarming even if it's right in front of me. 

The best I could do is look 

at other people's photos on Flickr, download them and put them on 

my desktop as wallpaper. 

It's the best I could do given my laziness and penchant to claim 

other people's hardwork as mine. 

And hey, that's how I did it then
so I thought I could still get away with it now. Alas, it turns out, 

I'm not the

 only one who 

knows how to use Google. That surprised me right there.

Unfortunately, I was driven by my youth, lack of experience, and the inability

 to see the 

repercussions of my actions. The sheer amount of the prize, the stiff competition, 
and the

unique opportunity to be abroad blinded me from undertaking what is 
supposed to be an 

honest and a rightful conduct. 

I'm young, see. You know how youths are. We're impulsive and I

 really don't know whatI was doing. All I know was that I liked 

your photo when I saw

 it on Flickr, downloaded it,claimed it as mine with the intent

 to win a prize for it without 

acknowledging you - unless I get caught. It's all about the 

money for me, see. And the fame. And the guise that I have talent.

 I also thought I could get away with it. 

It was a regrettable lapse on my judgment, and no words

 can express how sorry I am for taking your photo as mine.

Sorry I got caught, really. I had no intention of

 returning the prize or acknowledgingthe source of the

 photo if no one called me on it. But now that I am, yep,

 I'm sorry.That's all the words I can use.

I am now in close contact with the organizers, conveyed my apologies, 
and sought their 

opinion on the matter and how to proceed from here. 

To make clear my sorry, I now 'fessed up to the organizer. 

See, I told you I'm really sorry.But it's only because I got caught.

I am surrendering everything that has been given to me in this competition, 
actually and virtually, 

and I take full responsibility for a disgraceful action and a grave moral 
lapse on my part. 

To really make it seem I'm sincere, look, I'm returning the money okay.

This recent turn of events has taught me to become humble, to have 
foresight, 

to be sensitive for the works of others, and ultimately, to take responsibility
 for my action.

I now know what I did is stupid, arrogant, lazy. I should 

have had the foresight to know 

I'm not the only one who knows about Google. 

So I take responsibility for all of these. I'll try to be a lot 

careful next time. 

Maybe, I'll try to plagiarize written content, who knows?

As long as I don't have to work for something to get anything,

 I'm all for it. I'm just used to it, sorry.That's how I roll. 

Again, I am in deep remorse for what I did. I am truly sorry, Sir Gregory.

Do you like the Sir I added before your name? That means I look 
up to you as my teacher and

you also remind me of the teacher who scolded me back then 
when I did something 

similar in school. Hopefully, you're also 
flattered by my calling you Sir.

Very respectfully and sincerely

=======

Below is my letter to Mark Solis:

Dear Mr. Solis

PSEUDO-PHOTOGRAPHER AT RISK OF BEING ETERNALLY
CONDEMNED AS A HACK

Hey yo!

Dude!

Seriously?

You had a lapse in judgment?

What were you, drunk?

Were you high on something other than an inflated view of yourself as an awesome 

Flickr-photo-downloader-photo-contest-submitter-pretender?!

That wasn't a lapse in judgment. 

You knew what you were doing.

You knew WHY you were doing it.

You're pretending again in your letter and blaming your youth for it.

Youth?! Dude, you're a young adult. 

And don't blame your youth, boy.

It doesn't take age to know what you did was motivated by greed and laziness.

You're wise enough to place that Rio de Janeiro boy in Zamboanga and India. 

You're definitely wise enough to know you have no plans to return the prize or
 `fess up if you didn't 

got caught.

Thankfully, you're too full of yourself to realize the power of the internet
and Google and the truth.

I can only wish you're earnestly in deep remorse of what you did.
If you really were, you wouldn't

have waited to be caught. And you would have sent your letter of sorry to 

Smith first and not to 

ABS-CBN. What, you can easily search for nice pics but find it difficult 
to search for 

the source of your pics?

I can only wonder if, other than you, Smith believes your letter of apology. I don't.

Sincerely,

CheezMiss

P.S.

Hoy "bata"! Sayo din ba `to? Yung totoo? Aminin.