WEEK 6

VERITAS

“Veritas” is a Latin word which means truth.

Searching for what is true is not as easy as it sounds, especially in our today’s
society where people easily believe in lies and false information without even
researching given the resources that they have to be able to do so. Plagiarism, fortune
telling, numerology, backbiting, gossiping, slander, libel, and character assassination
are the common things that hinders us from being able to find the truth.

Plagiarism is a manner of stealing another’s ideas or words and claiming is as

one’s own. It refers to the use of another people’s work without citing the source from
which it came from.

Fortune telling is an act of predicting what the future has in store for a person.
Since humans’ lives are uncertain, they tend to believe that what has been said by the
fortune teller will really happen. Having said so, they can get easily blinded by the
foretold future and forget that we are in fact the ones that are responsible and in control
for our own.

Backbiting is a harsh and nasty comment directed at someone who is not

around, whereas gossiping is the casual discussion of others' personal issues. We
should not engage in such talks because these can ruin someone’s dignity especially if
the information about the person is not true. It is better to keep our thoughts to
ourselves if we do not have anything good to say.

Slander is the act of making a false, derogatory, or malicious remark about

someone. If we do not put a stop to this, it will lead to character assassination - a
deliberate attempt to harm someone's reputation, generally by harsh and dishonest
criticism.